Torpedo Australia?... Well... sort of!! - With the first bit of good weather for while, and with my outdoor gills starving for a breath, the call was made to finish up at work early on friday and 4 wheel drive up the West Coast of Auckland, NZ, for a spot of Torpedo Fishing, or “ Konitki fishing” on the Westcoast.
Muriwai beach is located roughly 35kms from Aucklands CBD and is an iron sand strip of beach, roughly 50kms long.
4wd-ing, horse riding, fishing and ocean swimming are among a few of the activities around Muriwai that people enjoy (here's me up behind the muriwai sand dunes in my 4wd last year)
Muriwai's also home to a huge Australasian gannet colony
We drove around 25 minutes from the beach entrance to our spot, before baiting up the 25 longline hooks needed to catch a good amount of Snapper or Gurnard ( they're the target species and great on the table !! )
The baited 25 hooks are set at around 1500 - 2000m ( 1 – 1.2 miles ) out from the beach in around 30 -35 metres (100ft) of water, we mostly use squid for bait.
Kontiki fishing is done in a “longline” style, where a central line of hooks is dragged out by a battery operated torpedo for around 30 minutes and weighted down by large sinkers.
At the end of the “soak” time, the line is hauled in via a large winch which takes another 30 minutes be bought back in.