A productive surfcasting session with solid gurnard action, a double hookup, plus a solid kahawai that went straight into the smoker along with some roe.

🦈 A Slow Start Targeting Rig

I kicked off this fishing trip with an early start just after sunrise, targeting rig shark. The day before, I had caught some fresh paddle crabs — one of the best baits for rig.

For the first 20 minutes or so, I had a single paddle crab out on each rod, but there was no action. I then doubled up on my paddle crab baits — one advantage of using speed clips is being able to quickly switch between one or two-bait setups.

After casting out my double paddle crab baits, I sent my drone up for its first scenic flight of the day.

Coastal sunrise

After about an hour of persevering with my paddle crab baits, I swapped one of them out for a raw banana prawn to mix things up. The lack of action continued, but I had a feeling things were about to change.

🎣 A Strong Fighting Kahawai

Around mid-morning, I decided to swap one of the paddle crab baits for a yellow-eyed mullet bait. At this point, I had a feeling there were no rig around, so I turned my attention to gurnard or other species more likely to take a fish bait.

Not long after casting out the yellow-eyed mullet bait, my rod bent over with the first fish of the day. It was putting up a good fight and I was struggling to work out what it was. Along with the yellow-eyed mullet bait, I also had raw prawn out there, so I thought perhaps I had a rig on.

Eventually, I got a decent push from a wave to help me out, and I was pleasantly surprised to see a nice, fat kahawai in excellent condition appear from the surf.

A nice kahawai in excellent condition

While filleting the kahawai, I noticed it was full of roe, and thankfully I had a clean container to store it in. At that point, I decided the kahawai would go into the smoker, which gave me the opportunity to try smoking roe for the first time.

Kahawai roe (gold bars)

🥕🥕 Double Gurnard Action

After catching the kahawai, I decided to go all in with fish baits (salted yellow-eyed mullet and pilchard). It wasn't long until my other rod hooked up, and I instantly noticed the distinctive gurnard tap-tap in the rod tip.

My instincts were correct, and I soon saw the welcome sight of a bright orange gurnard appearing in the surf. But to my surprise, there was one on the second hook too. There was then a moment of chaos as the second gurnard came off the hook and washed back out. I made a frantic run into the surf and just managed to grab it before it swam away - phew!

Double gurnard action

🥕 More Gurnard Action

For the next 2–3 hours, the gurnard action continued. I was catching a fair amount of spiny dogfish bycatch too, but eventually they disappeared as the sea cleaned up.

Some other fishermen down the beach came over one by one as they saw me pulling in gurnard. They were quite surprised and curious about what I was doing differently. As far as I could tell, the main difference was that I was using flasher rigs and they weren't. I also suspect I was casting a bit further and hitting the clean water more often.

By early afternoon, the gurnard suddenly went off the bite, and with six gurnard and a kahawai in the catch bag, I decided it was a good time to head home.

My gurnard catch line-up for the day

🔥 Hot Smoked Kahawai and Smoked Roe

Back at home, I filleted the kahawai first and dry cured it with a 50/50 mix of sea salt and brown sugar.

I then moved on to filleting the gurnard and kept the roe ready to smoke alongside the kahawai roe. My plan was to fire up the smoker the next day, and since I was worried about over-curing or drying out the roe, I just gave it a light sprinkling of salt.

Due to heavy rain the next day, I had to wait two days to get the smoker going.

The way I smoke fish is by placing a hot smoker box over my BBQ burners. This allows me to control the temperature and the amount of smoke produced. The method I usually follow is to place a large handful of mānuka wood chips in the centre of the smoker box and cover them with a square of tin foil, just big enough to cover the chips. This prevents flare-ups from sending wood chips into the fish and also helps to disperse the smoke more evenly through the smoker rather than directly onto the underside of the fish.

Hot smoker box setup over my BBQ burners

I started with the kahawai and smoked it for around 20 minutes. It came out great, and I try to time it so the surface has just caramelised to a golden brown. Going beyond this, you can lose too much of the fat and it can dry out a bit.

Hot smoked kahawai - so good!

Next, I moved on to the roe. I had given it a full cure with salt and brown sugar an hour earlier. I wanted to avoid overcooking it, so I planned to smoke it for about half the time of the kahawai (around 10 minutes) and turned the BBQ burners right down. But even at 10 minutes on lower heat, it was still overdone - lesson learned for next time.

Despite being a bit overdone, it still tasted good, and my favourite was the kahawai roe. It had a smoother, more buttery texture compared to the gurnard roe, which was a bit firmer and stronger in flavour.

Hot smoked kahawai and gurnard roe

All up, this was a great session and always a good day when you head home with a few carrots!

📓 Field Notes

• Location: Canterbury
• Target species: Rig, gurnard
• Landed: Kahawai, gurnard, spiny dogfish
• Conditions: Light winds, clear skies, 0.4 m swell dropping through the day, discoloured water early changing to clean by early afternoon
• Tide: Outgoing
• Best bait: Salted yellow-eyed mullet and salted pilchard for gurnard
• My gear: Shimano Xitus Pro 13'6" rods (x2), Shimano Ultegra CI4+ 14000 XTC reel, Shimano Ultegra XSD 14000 reel

🎥 Watch the Full Video

The full mission is available on my YouTube channel.

👉 Watch it on YouTube

Got any feedback or questions? Feel free to drop a comment on any of my social media channels — I read them all.

— Dan