I’d wanted to go fishing with Derrick Gerritsen since he set up his charter business – Big Fish BOI, several years ago. And after selling my boat and waiting for a new one to arrive, this seemed like the perfect time to hit the road and head north.
Derrick runs his fishing charter business in the Bay of Islands and specialises in snapper and kingfish, with kingfish generally the most popular species over the summer months. Especially with tourists. The BOI is famous for kingfish, with many schools of 10-12kg fish and, of course, those bigger 20-30kg trophy fish.
Snapper was on the menu this trip, and more importantly, a bait n burly trip; I’d planned to bring my young son James on his first out-of-town, boys-only fishing trip. James and I were pumped to get out of town! Before leaving, this was the most excited I’ve ever seen him. We left Auckland at a reasonable hour and managed to get to Paihia by about 7 pm, leaving us plenty of time to get a pizza in town and take in all the buzz of the warm evening and various people cruising around enjoying themselves.
Derrick had arranged to pick us up from the Paihia wharf – a short walk from our motel – at 6:30 am sharp. Having worked in the recreational fishing trade all my life, I’ve been on a few charter boats over the years, and the best operators always run a clean and tidy ship with everything having a place. This was precisely how Derricks’ boat was.
Date – 6/11/22
Location – Bay of Islands
Anglers – Myself and James Arkell
Launch time – 6:30 am
Sunrise – 6:17 am
High Tide – 6:31 am
Fishing calendar – indicated average fishing
Best bite – 8:30 am – 9:30am
Burley – Surface
Bait – Fresh Slimy Mackeral & Jack Mackeral
Biggest fish – 77cm
Number of fish caught – 13
Time fishing – 3 hours
The first stop was bait – Derrick favours fresh Jack Macs and Slimely Macs for bait; within 15 mins of leaving the dock, we were into fresh bait schools, catching them hand over fist. It didn’t take long for the VHF to crackle into life, with several other local operators calling in to ask Derrick where the bait was. We were definitely on the right boat!
With the morning forecast perfect and the live bait tank full of bait fish, we were off to find the snapper—hopefully, big, fat angry orange ones.
The first stop was a classic stray line zone in 20 metres over sand, rubble, and light current—my favourite. And the sort of area you know you will catch some big fish in. This was the only stop we needed, and the first fish of the day was a massive 77cm snapper. Sadly this fish wouldn’t release and had to come home. We then proceeded to catch fat snapper with every bait, including a tarakihi, a welcome addition to the dinner plate. James had an absolute ball, catching the smaller 50cm fish all on his own, then with dad helping him hold the rod on a bigger 70cm model.
After some epic fishing, Derrick suggested we go for a little cruise, check out some bays, feed some fish, and put James on the beach for a runaround. That got a big thumbs up from us, and we went and checked out all the splendour the Bay of Islands has to offer.
Derrick wanted to stop and do more fishing at another spot, but with an already excellent morning and the wind forecast to pick up, we decided to call it and head in early. A memorable trip for me. With this being my and my son James’ first out-of-town trip together, the fishing was everything we could have hoped, with just about every fish a PB for James. We only kept what we could eat fresh the following week – 3 snapper and a tarakihi—releasing the rest, so we didn’t put unnecessary pressure on what is a fabulous and bountiful resource.
Big Fish BOI is a superb operation run by a very knowledgeable skipper who has spent his entire life fishing recreationally, professionally and commercially out of the Bay of Islands. The fishing was excellent, and Derrick’s half-day trip was all the time needed to have some spectacular fishing.
We will be back!
