Cook Islands

[Herby]

I just got back from a pretty awesome 10 day trip to the Cook Islands.
Viz was phenomenal, averaging 35-40 metres, and water temperature was 28 degrees.
The place we went to hasn't really been dived before so we didn't know what to expect.
We had wahoo, yellowfin, dogtooth, GTs all come and check the flasher out... on a shoredive... on our first dive of the trip.

Sharks were a wee bit of an issue, we lost a few fish to them, and we almost lost a float, but managed to grab it a km down the coast once the shark finally dropped it.
The Mu were bloody hard, hanging mid-water, the red bass weren't easy either, so I was happy when I finally smacked them.
Coronation trout were pretty abundant and dumb (I think I speared close to ten) as were peacock flounder (we got 12 one day). We started getting the hang of the place towards the end, and eventually got a doggie as the sun set on our last day. It wasn't a big one at 10 kegs but its a doggie. Whenever we tried we'd get fish coming on the flasher. I dropped a wahoo, and Evan shot in the general direction of a pretty big yellowfin.
Apart from the napoleons, GTs were the big fish on the reef, and we got them up to just under 30kg.
The fishing wasn't that flash, but there is heaps to do on the island, we only dived about 3/4 of the days we were there and even then it was usually only half days.
We managed to get a group of pretty big hammerheads worked up on the flasher and burley one afternoon which was pretty choice to see.
Did a little bit of pig hunting one day before breakfast, 130 rob allen did the trick and it was pork roasted over embers for dinner that night.
We also went caving and saw the kopeka nesting, one of the rarest birds in the world, google it.
The layout seemed to go from 0 metres to 10 over a gradual slope(the fishiest zone), then drop abruptly to 25-30 onto the sand/rubble with big gutters that cut back into the breaker zone which you can follow out to a pretty scary dropoff in 35-40 that looked near vertical judging by the angle of the path a big napoleon took when I stalked him to the edge... too deep for me to follow. 150 metres would surely be within 100 metres of shore, it'd probably be more like 1500 actually. We only got to dive a small stretch of coast so it might be different at other places, and judging by google earth it is.
We shore-dived for all but one of our dives which was at Takutea Island, an unhinhabited island 18 kays to the North West. This place was like a marine reserve, and pretty mindblowing. Sharks were a real problem here made obvious from the moment we got in the water. We didn't shoot much though as the guys on the boat took off to troll for tuna and wahoo (they got 2 of each) leaving us in a pretty lonely and vulnerable position. We limited ourselves to a couple of fish each to minimise the shark issue, and even doing that resulted in a trevally getting smashed, the shark getting the floatline stuck in his teeth and bolting with the float. As I said earlier we got lucky and got the float back.
The shore-diving was handy, we just went out from the harbour most of the time, but a couple of times we crashed over the reef, the diving was no better or worse, just harder to access. I sussed out a few access spots on google earth but we never got around to using them. Next time. We just swam up the coast against the current shooting fish as we went and then when we got tired we swam 15 kicks out to the dropoff and slashed and flashed with the current back to the car.
We apparently weren't there in the best fishing season, we were told when that is and I'm keen to go back then, I think knowing what we now know about the place it'd be a pretty good trip fish-wise.
Ciggy was a really weird one there, some people said that every fish is fine to eat and none are poisonous, and others said that all the fish are poisonous and not to eat anything, there was a different opinion from everyone we asked. We weren't keen to risk it and just gave our fish to people who said it was fine to eat... and made it clear we took no responsibility. Everyone was still standing when we left, so they might be right? The only fish we ate was wahoo, which I was dissapointed with - too much like yellowtail.

The bush beer huts are known as Tumunu, where they serve a weird homebrew beerey/winey stuff. The homebrew is pretty potent and made for one purpose - to get you off your tits. It worked well, and before we knew it the guy who was serving us passed out and I ended up at the helm dishing it out. 3 out of 4 of us spewed. That stuff is awesome, I'm going to start up a tumunu at home.

["Yard-Sale Josh"]

That sounds like an incredible trip!! Pig on a rob allen!? Huge fish! ghetto hooch!?. I ****ing love it hahahaha!!!!

[slingshaft]

Who said that one gun can't do it all

[hardhat]

Sounds like a great trip. WTG on the hog.

[Herby]

The pig was a stroke of luck really, two of us were up earlier than the other two do we decided to go for a drive. As we entered a particularly bushy area we could see a mob of pigs on the opposite hillside. We happened to have a RA130 in the back of the ute so I grabbed it and after a bit of quiet barefooted (the other guy still had his pyjamas on!) stalking we were close enough, I poked my head over a ledge and popped a wee pig right between the eyes. At least pigs don't get ciguatera.

[2fishin2]

piggies are easier to shoot and more tender

[Ryanfish]

Epic! Always wanted to kill a pig with a speargun. I've chased them around the woods with a loaded 120 RA but never got a shot off.

[doggiestyle]

Hi Herby how you going,that sounds like an awesome trip with great results for shore dives!!.Didnt know they had Boarfish in the Cooks,who needs a 30/30 and a bunch of pig dogs ah a RA will do the job no probs.
That local brew sounds like it gives similar results as Bali's Arak,the insides go outside......
Always good to escape the NZ winter-spring diving for some clear and warm water.
Cheers

[Herby]

heres a bit of a taste of what the diving was like....


https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=10151406613942362

[SpearoTastic]

Good stuff!

Thank you, for sharing!

["Yard-Sale Josh"]

Awesome video, music went well with it too.

[Herby]

YouTube

["Yard-Sale Josh"]

Really good video, watched the entire thing
laughed at the ending

[Behslayer]

Nice Video, Great looking water. Looks like an awesome place, thanks to share.

[Herby]

Cheers guys. Yeah the water made our gin seem cloudy.