Kapiti: Frozen Saturday, Mullins-style

[kjflyfish]

As stated, I froze my butt off all day, with a couple periods of excitement over schooling warehou. We started in 60+ and stayed there all day, so deeper drops were the order of the day. Warehou are generally deep water fish that come inshore for a few short periods each year. Dave Mullins is the warehou king around here and he put this trip together to target them specifically.

I was able to get two surface shots off, but the combination of stiff chop and super wary fish led to two misses. If you so much as removed the snorkel from your mouth, the fish were gone, so it was hard going.

I eventually tired of the speargun and went overboard with my new 8' Ray Odor polespear and after several dives managed tomorrow's lunch, a blue cod. It was super fun and I'll be breaking out the polespear a lot more.

Mullins showed us all up with a 40# kingfish. Go figure. :cowboy:

Dave, if you have a picture of that kingy, post it up.

[kjflyfish]

Mr. Mullins with his catch:

[offduty]

What's a Warehou look like? Just curious.

[kjflyfish]

The top fish is one of Dave's warehou http://www.fishing.net.nz/asp_forums/forum_posts.asp?TID=29537

The two on the bottom are terakihi.

[Mullins]

These ones are blue warehou, they look a lot like jacks with those long pec fins but apparently they're from the family of African Barrelfish. We've got 2 other species - white warehou, which are smaller and bluenose warehou which live very deep and grow to around 50kg.

These ones are fun to hunt but they can be frustrating as hell to shoot once they get a bit spooked, especially if they're up near the surface. They also have an annoying tendency to tear off because they're so soft and fight like jacks.

Kolt, was great to catch up with you and Nick. Pity I never got a chance to take a shot with that gun. Looks like we might have to wait until spring for the next warehou hunt, this weather has probably sent the water temp down a degree or two :(

[kjflyfish]

Hey Dave, I was wondering if you were going to post. It was great to go diving with you, hopefully we can do it again soon. I'll bring a whole arsenal of guns next time and you can choose your weapon! I think I can still stand a few degrees cooler as long as the sun is shining - it was dark and super windy that day we went, which really killed it.

[Mullins]

Sounds good! I'll be out there again next chance I get but I suspect the warehou schools will have gone deep again if the temp has dropped, it was already pretty late in the year for them to be around.

[offduty]

Very cool. Gotta love those Kingfish. Thanks for the pic.

[float 'n stalk]

Great stuff Kolt!