30lber of the deck!
Anglers can only dream of catching a snapper off there deck, let alone a 30lb snapper!
Catching a snapper off your own deck may sound like the ultimate fantasy, but it's one that came true for Taranaki man Brent Davies.
Brent's deck at his coastal Taranaki home overlooks the ocean, and its proximity to the water meant he has always wanted to catch a fish from it. Turns out, he managed to catch the biggest snapper he's ever caught – a 14.5kg one using a drone.
"I love fishing any way you can get it, whether that's surfcasting, drone fishing or boat fishing or spear fishing... as long as I'm fishing, I'm happy," Brent says.
"I tried to surfcast a few times, but it wasn't quite cutting it, I was getting it in the water but just not far enough," he says.
"So, I got myself a drone and have been fishing off the deck since early summer. It gives you the opportunity to get the line up and over the rocks and well over the back, going as far out as 500m."
The day he caught the snapper, Brent says the tide was looking about right and there wasn't much wind, so he got the drone out. His uncle happened to be over, who didn't believe him when he said he had been fishing using a drone.
"He called me a bullshit artist," Brent laughs.
"I got the gear out and I baited up, flew it out, and he was pretty impressed. I put the rod back in the rod holder, we talked for a couple of minutes, and then it just bent over, and I thought, oh that's a good fish. I started winding it in and knew it was a good fish straight away.
“When he was probably 80m out, I could see him on top of the water. I thought it might be six or eight kilos. So, from the deck I wound him in until there was a bit of a swell and caught him on a wave and surfed him up on the beach. Then I raced down the beach, it takes about a minute to get down there, and when I saw him on the sand he was a lot bigger than I thought he was!
"I've been fishing for 30, 40 years and I always wanted a 30lber. Normally I would release a big fish back into the ocean, but he was quite buggered, so I'm not sure he would have survived.
"The way I see it is if you take three 10lberss, that's got more of an effect than taking one 30lber in your lifetime."
Brent says he will get the fish mounted.
