'04 South Island Champs

'04 South Island Champs John Anderson

As you could well imagine, if diving the South Island (let alone a South Islandcomp), crap vis, cold water and big seas are par for the course. We had flown down to Nelson on Thursday evening to be greeted by the local boys (who very kindly put us up, fed us, watered us, lent us cars, gave us pointers, took us diving, took us shopping, generally did an A1 job of showing us it’s done in the South.

We towed the next morning to Okiwi, which is a goodly way up one of the fingers of land that comprise the sounds and jumped in at Tom Thumb rocks to be greeted by warm, clear water and about one inch of westerly swell with a nasty 2 knots of wind chop whipping the surface to a pancake. Terrible. No fish, though being schooled by tarakihi of 100mmm was a novelty. There is a cave at 10 or so metres which is said to hold big crays from time to time but not this time. Phil, who was our Dad for the weekend, found a cray for me in the rubble around the cave entrance and I was on the board. 

Next stop was a group of stacks to the west of D’Urville called the Paddock Rocks but the area was pretty uninspiring so we pulled the pin and re anchored further north along the same chain. This was a pretty nice dive though a little filthy. Almost made the water even filthier when I came close to losing bowel control after a conger had a bit of a false charge at me. I’m unconvinced the idea of pulling crays anywhere they live is the product of a sane mind. At one point I was visited by a small school a kings, which boded well for the Comp to be held the next day.

Day of the comp dawned fine and clear, again with virtually no wind or swell. After a briefing at the boat ramp at Okiwi, we headed out to a group of islands called the Trios, which lie to the east of D’Urville

The comp was a four-hour swim comp based around the Nationals format. Because the area holds both southern species in the northern part of their range and northern species in the southern, no one is at all sure what will show up. Consequently the fish list is actually an excluded fish list. No cartilaginous fish, eels, no red moki, magpie perch (a kind of moki they get in O.K numbers down that way), no leather jackets, none of the wrasses. Aside from them, if it weighs 500gms, smash it. It may sound a little ‘old school kill ém all’ but actually worked very well. Only one fish of each species per pair.

Dazza and I opted to follow Mark and Phil, our hosts and the keen beans of the region, as the area was one of those ‘swim north or swim south’ type areas where your choice of direction can make or break you. They headed south and we followed only to look up 5 mins after to discover they had hoodwinked us by doing a 180 and running north. Treachery!!!!!. We gave the southern end a couple of dives, cut our losses and bolted north……into a river of current, soul destroying current. Make a metre a minute current. Over arm current. Shields just plodded into it while I died. Halfway to our destination we ran into that Herbert kid and his partner fishing a reef, which they informed us was the northern boundary of the area. After a bit of a pow wow with them, we agreed that as we were the only two pairs out there, we would not go out to the next island, our initial destination and what Shields and I thought was the northern boundary (in the end they were right). I could have cried in relief.

Anyway, we picked up Blue cod, blue moki. Then Dazza started laying into the Barracoutta (show-off). There were lots of Butterfly perch and Tarakihi around but they didn’t look 500 to us.  After an hour of so, things had cooled off and though the area almost screamed kingfish, neither Dwayne and Alan or ourselves could rustle one up

It was kind of hard diving as whether you dived to 5 metres or 25m the species were all the same-endless blue cod and blue moki with schools of just under butterfly perch and Tarakihi. All you could do was just keep a guy on the bottom in the hope of something coming along. I found a bastard cod but later at the weigh in it went 440. Eventually we bailed and headed back to the main island where we found a school of bigger than normal -but still under tarakihi. We burleyed up a storm over them and eventually drew in a big one, which Dazza collected. Only three tarakihi went weight at the weigh in. With an hour to go we moved again to a deep drop off and after a couple of fairly deep dives, a 10kg kingie came in for a quick look and I managed to stitch him with a snap shot. The spear didn’t go right through but Dazzas second shot was good and he was ours. We hunted the shallow bay the boats were moored in for a red mullet or maybe a flounder or gurnard but saw nothing. On one dive, I was cruising the bottom, which was just bare mud, when I came upon a puffer hiding behind a clump of kelp. Not giving it much thought, I continued on. Then came a realization and with it a sense of dread. I swung around and lined up on him. His puppy dog eyes watched on. I ran through the banned fish list in my head. I was going to drill Mr. Puffer fish. He wasn’t on the banned list. His puppy dog eyes watched on. I felt like a criminal.

Anyway, my morals got the better of me and so I ditched the gun and after a short and very unfair chase, I scooped him up under my arm and headed back up for confirmation from my partner. After some deliberation, Dazza agreed that he was fair game. Mr. Puffer fish said nothing, puffing himself up in indignation. I carted him around until the safety boat arrived with a camera and, after a few evidential photographs, he was free to go. The organizer who was also the boatman agreed that it would do nothing for the reputation of the sport to actually spear him and that to all intents and purposes he was secured and that was that. He went on our scorecard as 500 grams. A sound resolution to a little oversight in the comp rules, which will be changed for next year. It was academic in the end as we had enough fish without him to win anyway. At the prize giving I got a little prize for sound conservation practices, which was a laugh.

I think with the open fish list the only fish that were weighed but not really edible were a couple of bastard cod and a stargazer. Hardly excessive in my opinion.

Next morning, not so early, we processed all the fish on Mark’s new driveway which gathered a appreciative crowd of 50,000 flies and an unappreciative crowd of one wife, Mandy. She was a good sport about it though and even helped with the bagging of the fish. The perfect woman?

Then off to the famous pupu springs which although you hear enough about them, nothing can prepare you for that vis. Unearthly at around 70m, the second clearest water in the world after that found under the Ross Ice Shelf. To warm up we did a drift dive down the river the springs feed. Great fun and good for trout watching. For legal reasons we won’t go into why Julian insisted on taking a bloody great knife with him but rest assured, Operation “Sorry Officer, I’ve No Idea How It Got Up My Jacket” was an complete failure, much to our relief.

All in all, an absolutely top trip with some pretty good diving and absolutely top notch company. A huge thanks to the Nelson crowd and the Nelson UWC for being such generous hosts. Also, of course, to WB for organizing flights etc. Hoorah!