I got my mum out for her first ever kayak fish today and by all respects I think it went pretty well. She had been badgering me to take her out for quite some time and as the weather gods seemed o agree that today was definitely the day...it was absolutely beautiful and you would have thought it was February not April.

We headed out through small surf at Papamoa Beach at around 1pm. Once out on the ocean, it was plain to see that mum was enjoying herself as I actually had to work a bit to keep up with her pace. She obviously was having no difficulties with the kayak so that was a great relief to me as it means I had made a good choice in purchasing them. As we headed towards one of my spots we could see Kahawai jumping everywhere and birds diving in on them so I thought this would be a good chance to get mum used to dealing with a fish in a kayak; something that can be a bit confusing if you have only ever caught them from the safety of a big boat. To target these Kahawai, I got her to troll her softbait along while we headed towards our spot. Sure enough it was log before she was hooked into a solid fish, learning the ways to deal with it, and shortly after she landed her first of many kahawai for the day.

Over the next couple of hours we had great fun catching both snapper and Kahawai. The snapper weren’t in their usual places but we still managed to pick a few up as we drifted along. I think in the end she was showing me how to do it because she was easily catching 2 or 3 to my 1. It was great to be able to share day out on the water with mum and with the sun shining and the fish biting I think she might agree that it was almost better than shopping...almost.

For the record we caught all of our fish on softbaits, using a mix of colours and brands. We would have caught maybe 1 dozen big Kahawai and 3 average snapper over the 2.5hrs fishing and we didn’t keep a single one (as I already had too many in the fridge).

Paddle hard everyone, Tim.

Mum hooked into yet another fish.

Mum's first Kahawai of the day