Wairarapa - May 2010

Kahawai chase bait onto the beach

March ushered in changeable conditions on our coast, and the much awaited ‘Indian Summer’ never happened.

The WSFC had to ‘can’ their tuna tournament, hoping to run it the following weekend, but the weather put paid to that as well. Those that did get out found tarakihi from 15m right out to the shelf, as well as limit bags of groper from 15kg upwards off Castlepoint and the Dogleg areas.

The Riversdale Club now boasts 170 members, and many of them turned up over Easter for the annual Tuna/Kahawai Tournament. All the prizes went, with Wayne Adcock cleaning up the shore-based kahawai with a massive 3.78kg fish taken at Whangamomona. Rick Mcleod of Snappa Two took out the top men’s tuna prize with a 10kg-plus fish, and his crew took second through fourth places in the women’s section. Heaps of albacore were caught, but most were less than 4kg.

Paul Madden, skipper of Salty Seadog, has been getting onto plenty of groper in the 14kg-plus range off Riversdale, while local personality ‘Brownie’ has weighed in an 11kg trumpeter for club points.

Down at the ‘Ferry’ the kahawai have been chasing bait up onto the beach, with up to 50 people each day over Easter taking advantage of the situation to feed the family back in Wellington. The same scenario with the kahawai has been happening at Mataikona, Flat Point and White Rock, but without the numbers of people.

Number One Son and his mate had a dive in two-metre swells at Riversdale on Easter Saturday, and managed to get a good feed of paua by ‘Braille’ while I sat on the shore and watched with the grandkids.

I paddled in the water, only to find, to my disgust, about 40 freshly shucked paua shells, all of which were undersized by about 5mm or more.

Freshwater has been very disappointing. Not many fish in my usual spots. Those I have managed to catch have all been rainbows about 20cm long. Very few fish are rising in the evenings, so hopefully it might be better in May.

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