Jigging trip to Three Kings Island, NZ

I arrived at LA airport from NZ and leave for NJ this morinng.
We had great jigging trip in excellent weather for 5 days.
Personally I had kingfish upto 75 -80 lbs, hapuka (wreckfish) upto 42 lbs and giant seabass upto 100 - 110 lbs all on jigs.

I caught all seabass including the trophy fish on 300 and 450 g g OTI jig which Minnow sent to me before the trip.

 

why is the metal hanging in the mouth like that? isn't it hooked through the assist?
I took off assist hook and replaced with 8/0 Gamatatsu Siwash hook for the experiment.

 

more pictures.

 

WoW!!!!! Kil, didnt you try out a couple of different reels on this trip??/ If so, I am curious as to which reels performed best for those big fish....
I used Penn Torque 200 and Accurate 870 two-speed for kingfish ( yellowtail) and used Saltiga 50 for deepwater giant seabass and hapuka (wreckfish). For some reason I could get only about 22 lbs max drag on the brand new Torque 200. I used Torque 200 and Accurate 870 alternatively for kingfish for the first day, but stayed with Torque for the rest of day because the star drag reel was much convenient for jigging.
Torque 200 was fun to use because of the smaller size, but the cranking power is not impressive due to high gear ratio. Whenever I changed to Saltiga 50 for seabass I noticed immediately the increased cranking power.

 

That's a very nice pile of sea bass stacked in that picture. I love sea bass. You've got me very hungry. I think I'm going to Central Market and buy some to grill. When you get back to NJ, post more pics and stories. NZ is a long trip but very worthwhile. Sure hope you got to eat some that fresh sea bass while on-board.

Did you guys toss and reels or rods overboard that failed? How many rods were snapped?
We ate fresh fish day and night everyday.
No rod and reel was tossed overboard due to failure, but two guys tossed overbaord their rod and reel accidentally. One was saved as the tossed rod and reel got tangled with other line. Lou,mate used my friend's Saltiga Z6000 and expensive Japanese jigging rod and he tossed it overboard while casting. He immediately dove into the water and came up with the rod on his hand in 5 seconds. I saw a brand new GLoomis rod's tip was broken while fighting a fish.

 

I gather these two guys on the left are the deckhands. The guy holding the seabass wearing the blue overalls looks like he could handle 50+ pounds of drag. I heard Randy's crew on the other boat got real drunk and didn't show up at the dock.


What was the air temperature?
What was the water temperature?
What depth of water was most of your fishing?
Was the current strong next to the islands?
Did you ever set up for Swords at night?
Was this a 100% jig only trip?
Did you stay on the boat for 5 days?
Lou is super strong. He lifted a 100 lbs fish easily.
There was a miscommunication that Capt. Mike of the Oracle believed the departure date was on 04-23, not on 04-22 and had a drinking pary on the water when Randy's group arrived at the dock. They left next moring and stayed at Three Kings one more night.

1.It was about 60 degree. It was cooler than I visited two years ago at the same period.
2. It was about 13 - 14 C.
3.We caught kingfish (yellowtail ) in 50 - 100 meter and caught seabass/hapuka in 100 - 120 meter.
4. Current was not an issue at all. I stayed with 8 - 10 oz hammered diamond for kingfish and used 300 - 450 oz OTI for seabass for the most of the trip.
5. We didn't try swordfish because fishing report was not good and a few guy got seasick. Everybody totally got tired after all day jigging and nobody complained for not fishing sworfish at night.
6.Everybody used jigs for kingfish, but some guys from Korea used baits for seabass.
7. Yes, we stayed on the boat 5 night/6 days.