A multi-species surfcasting session that delivered great gurnard fishing, school sharks, and an unforgettable encounter with a giant short-tailed stingray.

🎣 A Slow Start, Then Chaos

The session started off pretty quietly. As I arrived, I'd already seen a gurnard and a rig being landed, so I knew there were fish around.

Jonno and Harry turned up just after I got my first line out. The sun was out and the sea was calm, but little did they know how busy the day ahead was going to be.

Since they only had one rod between them, I decided to put a third rod out for this session. It's a stiff Okuma Kotare — a rod I don't rate highly for self-hooking fish on circle hooks when it's left in the holder. That said, it's still capable of hooking fish.

After about 45 minutes, I noticed the Kotare had bent over slightly. When I wound in, it felt like a dead weight and I initially assumed I'd hooked a carpet shark. Instead, a red cod appeared in the surf — the first one I'd landed in around two years.

It was a reasonable size at roughly 50cm, but in very poor condition. Watching back the footage later, I described it as "all skin and bones". The red cod fishery along the South Island's east coast has clearly struggled in recent years. I usually catch them closer to winter when the water cools, so my guess is maybe this fish was struggling to find food out deep and had come inshore earlier than usual.

Despite their reputation, worms are rarely an issue. Out of more than 100 red cod I've caught, I can only remember seeing worms in the flesh on a couple of occasions — and those were large fish around the 70cm mark. The more common complaint is that the fillets are watery and mushy. If you chill the fish right down to the bone before filleting, then lightly salt the fillets and leave them in the fridge overnight, they firm up nicely. Done properly, you end up with a much firmer fillet with more flavour than blue cod.

First fish of the trip — a red cod in poor condition

🦈 A Decent School Shark

After a bit of a quiet spell, Jonno loaded up with a decent fish. It's always a bit of fun trying to guess what type of fish you have on. My guess was he had either a school shark or an elephant fish. After a bit of a battle, he pulled in a 1 metre school shark.

School sharks are good eating, almost as good as rig in my opinion, but I prefer to take them around the 60 to 80cm mark to reduce the risk of mercury. Large school sharks over 1 metre are known to be relatively high in mercury.

So we decided to tag this fish for Tindale Marine Research.

Tagging a 1 metre school shark

🌊 An Ocean Monster

Around midday, some cloud cover came over and I had a feeling something about the day was going to change. Soon after, one of my rods bent over big time. Initially I assumed it was another school shark, but soon realised I had something much bigger.

The fish went on a strong run down the beach and I had to chase it for a bit. It then turned and came back closer to where it had hooked up. I knew I had a serious fish and at this point suspected either a sevengill shark or a very large school shark (tope).

The next five minutes were basically a stalemate with the fish, and I couldn’t make any ground with it. I then slowly started to make some progress and brought it in closer, one turn of the handle at a time.

As soon as I saw the shadow of the fish in the surf, I became confident that I might actually land it. At this point, I still suspected it was a large sevengill shark.

At around the nine-minute mark, I had it close in and we could clearly see it was a large stingray.

My next issue was trying to wind the leader onto the reel so I could apply more pressure to the fish. I was rigged up with 30lb braid and a 60lb shock leader. I usually run two rod lengths of shock leader and was really confused as to why I couldn’t see it. I had pointed the rod straight at the fish and wound in as much line as I could without getting dangerously far out into the surf.

Eventually, a larger wave pushed in, and that was the moment that tipped the balance in my favour. I ran straight back, making the most of the helpful push from the wave.

The ray emerged from the surf and we were in awe of the size of it. I immediately identified it as a short-tailed stingray. It had a very menacing look about it, and its large eyes, perched up towards the top of its high dome, appeared to be looking straight at us.

I then tried to get it a bit further up the beach on the next push, but the line snapped directly at the hook. Probably a good result in the end, since the ray swam away on the next wave and we didn’t have to deal with removing the hook. I don’t use stainless hooks, meaning they will corrode away in the seawater before too long.

Later, I discovered I only had one rod length of leader, not the usual two, which explained why I struggled to see it towards the end of the fight.

My arms were dead, but I was stoked to have landed my first ever stingray, somewhat surprising given the number of hours I’ve spent fishing over the years.

Short-tailed stingray emerging from the surf

🥕 Gurnard and More Gurnard

Soon after landing the stingray, I had another fish on. It felt tiny in comparison and I initially suspected either a small school shark or a dogfish, so I was pleasantly surprised to see a nice 43cm gurnard appear in the surf.

I quickly dealt with the fish and cast my bait out again. It always feels like a bit of a rush to get the bait back out when the gurnard turn up, as they tend to come and go pretty quickly.

Within about 10 minutes, my other rod hooked up, and this time I was more confident it was a gurnard. This one measured 40cm. I had a feeling the fishing was only going to pick up from here, and I wasn’t wrong.

Over the next 20 minutes or so, I landed another two gurnard, both around 43cm. Salted yellow-eyed mullet on flasher rigs with 4/0 circle hooks was the combo that was working.

First gurnard of the trip

🎣 A Mystery Catch

Shortly after landing my fourth gurnard, one of my rods hooked up again. The rod tip had the classic tap-tap-tap look of a gurnard, so this time I let Harry have a go at winding it in.

He was doing a good job, but it soon looked like something much bigger was on, so Jonno came over to help. He was also struggling to make any progress, and it looked like something big was putting a shake down the line. We assumed it was either a sevengill shark or another stingray.

Adding to the chaos of the moment, Jonno’s rod hooked up, so I went to deal with it. I wound in a small school shark, returned it to the surf, then went back to help Jonno.

After a while, Jonno tired and handed the rod over to me. I just assumed we had another ray on, since it felt just like the stingray I caught earlier. I applied some more pressure, something gave, and the line started to come in.

To our complete surprise, two fish came in: a gurnard and a large yellow-eyed mullet. The line must have been snagged, but on what? Both hooks were in the mouth of a fish.

Anyway, it gave us a good laugh, and a gurnard and a large yellow-eyed mullet were a good result.

Our mystery catch — A gurnard and a yellow-eyed mullet

🚁 Harry's First Gurnard and a Drone Flight

The fish kept coming and Harry had another attempt at landing a fish, this time on his dad’s rod. He did a good job handling the big surfcasting rod and landed a nice gurnard, the first one he had ever caught, and he was more than happy.

Harry with his first ever gurnard

I had been waiting for a quieter spell to put my drone up again, but realised that might not happen. I quickly sent the drone up for another flight. It’s always interesting to see the sea state from above and the conditions the fish are biting in.

Around two to three hours before low tide is when the fish came on the bite. The outgoing tide tends to make the water a bit discoloured, as you can see in the photo below (it was much cleaner earlier on). For gurnard, I usually prefer clean water, but on this particular day it didn’t seem to matter.

Sea state when the fish were biting

🐟 A Few More Fish to Finish the Day

Soon after landing my drone, I noticed Jonno was hooked up with a decent bend in his rod. He pulled in an 80cm school shark, a good size for eating and low risk of mercury at that size. This one we kept for the table.

The final fish of the day was a very fat gurnard I caught shortly after Jonno’s school shark. It was a 45cm specimen full of roe.

80cm school shark kept for the table

We all had a great day, one of those fishing trips you’ll never forget!

📓 Field Notes

• Location: Canterbury
• Target species: Gurnard, elephant fish, rig shark, kahawai
• Landed: Red cod, gurnard, school shark, short-tailed stingray
• Conditions: Light winds, 0.3m swell, clean water becoming discoloured
• Tide: Outgoing – best bite time was 1–3 hours before low
• Best bait: Salted yellow-eyed mullet for gurnard and school shark
• 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 the YouTube video — I read them all.

— Dan