After three days of incredible snapper fishing and some enjoyable encounters with modest kingfish, we decided it was time for a change.

“Shall we try a ‘puka fish?” I asked Eli that evening while filleting the day’s catch. The previous year, I had had my first real introduction to bottom fishing, targeting species such as hapuku, bass, and bluenose while fishing up at the Three Kings Islands.

Before that, I had been largely ambivalent when it came to bottom fishing, put off by the heavy gear, bottom snags, and mundane winding associated with targeting these fish. However, the Kings offered a very different experience. With relatively little fishing pressure due to a combination of the islands’ isolated location and the treacherous weather conditions that may be encountered in reaching them, bottom fish such as hapuku and bass can be found in good numbers in relatively shallow water. On a day out on the Middlesex Bank we caught numerous bass and hapuku up to 37kg in only 90-110 metres of water.

With the incredible memories of battling these goliaths echoing in my mind, I had all the motivation I needed to change things up and give something relatively new a go.

Preparation would be key and first we would need to ensure we had the right gear. We headed up to the local fishing retailer ‘Reel Rods’ to purchase a couple of hapuku rigs. These rigs consisted of trace line with two large circle hooks attached in a ledger fashion, as well as lumo-tubing, a small glow-stick and a break-away trace to which a sinker could be fastened.

Next, we would need to identify an area where we might find these fish. This was achieved via a combination of Navionics and some local intel highlighting an area of scattered foul in approximately 100 metres of water. We weren’t likely to catch giants there, but with the limitations of our 4.3-metre boat and limited capacity jigging reels, the opportunity to knock over a few hapuku pups would have to suffice.

The next morning, we launched from Rangiputa and headed to an area where kahawai schools had been feeding on the surface the day before. Catching a couple to use as fresh bait, we could now point the bow to our marked destination.

Feelings of excitement and anticipation grew soon after we arrived at these new fishing grounds. Marking both bottom foul and bait schools, our drift line was established before driving back up in front of the prospective marks we wanted to drop our new rigs on.

That was when we realised we were missing a key component: we had left the ‘puka sinkers in the car! Having no other sinkers on board, we were forced to improvise, attaching 300-gram jigs in place of our sinkers. We soon had two rigs and four fresh strips of kahawai plummeting into the depths.

It wasn’t long before my rod loaded up. Unfortunately, this load up was not followed by the ‘freight train’ type runs I had become accustomed to while fishing up at the Three Kings. The only thing I had loaded up on was the bottom, and after 15 minutes of trying every technique we could think of to break off my rig (while not also losing a large proportion of my braid), we both began to lament our decision to give up exceptional snapper fishing for this hapuka hunt!

In a last-ditch attempt to free ourselves from our unwanted anchor, I began to wrap the braid around an aluminium bar located near the boat’s stern in attempt to exert enough pressure to break the line close to the bottom. However, the drift began to pull on the line, tightening a half-hitch. I realised the braid was about to snap at this knot, and not at the bottom, and I yelled at Eli to throw the boat in reverse. He responded just in time, creating enough slack to allow me to unpick the knot.

Now truly frustrated, I began to wind in the slack line produced from our rapid reverse. As the line came tight once more, and the familiar load of a snag flexed the rod, I noticed the tip of the rod suddenly nod. “That was strange…” I thought to myself.

It was then that line started disappearing from my reel at a rapid rate of knots.

Still believing I was hooked to the bottom, and wondering why he had put the boat into gear, I turned to Eli.

“Mate, stick it in reverse, I’m going to lose all my line,” to which he replied, “I’m already in reverse!”

Line began to pull off my reel at an even greater rate – no easy feat given I had set the drag as tight as it would go in our earlier attempt to break the line. It finally dawned on us both that we weren’t on the bottom anymore, we were on a fish!