Bluewater diving in New Zealand!

Today the water is very very blue so it's going to be a lot of school fish action and potentially some game fish you never know but we're going to try and get a couple of kingies and a few other bits and pieces and when it's blue like this there's often sharks. Growing up in the era I have and being able to see fish like I have at 61 years old I can still get a buzz out of seeing fish life like this. These mid-water snapper like this require a bit of burley to help you be able to get close to them for a shot. At the moment I'm happy just to look. These pink maomau are a member of the hapuka family believe it or not. This snapper here was too busy trying to eat some burley that was there and wasn't worried about me. Big mistake. It's the perfect size. Now note where I icky it. This is the correct icky spot and if the snapper holds its mouth open like here that means it's dead. If a snapper closes its mouth when you're eking it and keeps it closed it's not dead. I like to bleed it as quick as I can so by bleeding it I'm cutting its gills and actually pull the gills out of this one. If you bleed a fish then the meat's so much better. The sharks are present in most places we dive these days. This guy here is really relaxed as you can see. He's not bothered at all by us but he is keeping a close eye on us. These kingfish have been bored by the bit of commotion of me shooting a fish and the other guys around me doing their thing. They're not real big fish but with all this fish around us like this it's just mesmerizing. Just take a minute to just sort of suck this all up and enjoy what there is here. These koi's all lit up like this because there's a kingy cruising through them. One of the boys has deployed a wetty spinner flasher. The idea of these is to let it fall for as far as you can before you have to go down and pick it up. One of the boys has speared a kahawai. Now check these kingies out nailing it on his spear. This is great fun when it gets like this. You can see these are much bigger fish so it's time to start looking at taking one or two of these guys. We've stayed really cool and calm with all these fish around and hence the fish aren't too worried about us. if you keep your movements to a minimum and just glide with these fish see how inquisitive they are that's a good shot on this fish this is Barry Baxter into one as well notice how relaxed Barry is just casual making sure there's no line tangled around and this is really important to keep line away from you Barry's using a wetty viper gun here with a reel on it, he's keeping that kingy out of the kelp. If a kingy gets into the kelp in a situation like this they can tear off or tangle up really badly and it's quite hard to untangle them. Just keep the pressure on and keep it away if you can. This thing's given up now, Barry's working in to get a big sort of hug on it he's going to grab it and wrap it up but at the same time just be very careful you don't get tangled in the rope. You get tangled up and a shark comes and grabs this fish, you're going down with it, you won't stop it. So Barry's just waiting for his opportunity here just slowly working it in making sure the line's out behind him. Get it in, get it under control. See how he's squeezing it hugging it tail between his legs hands in its gills. It's really important to get your hands in its gills. Now he's got total control over this fish once it's hands in its gills, knife out, give it the ikijime. Careful in a situation like this, make sure your buddy comes in and keeps an eye on things, it's very hard for you to see if there's any sharks coming in when you're in the sort of midst of the battle like this, holding a fish bleeding fish like this is when you are at risk of getting bitten by a shark so you want to make sure your mates have got your back. I mean, days like this are what dreams are made of and it's things like this we'll never forget. It's my turn now I take my time and glide down in on this fish. See how he wasn't really worried about me? I didn't chase him too much, I just glided down towards him. It's a really good hard hitting shot, it's hurt him I'm only using a reel gun there, so I had to be careful with that. I've decided to gut it in the water and see I'm pulling out whole koharu out of his stomach. I did this on purpose in the water to see if I could bring in some more snapper. Now, it's not ideal with sharks around, and as I talked about earlier, have your mate keeping an eye on things around you. Barry gives this thing a decent jab and it's gone. It's all over. There's no more trouble. I still keep my eyes peeled while I swim this kingy back to the boat, but certainly all the guts from the Kingi brought in lots of fish. This is what we can have if we look after our environment. New Zealand is such a great playground.