Great Mercury – Part 2

I have never really done much long line fishing before, but Joe, John and I went out for a bit of the recreational version before dinner. I will try to explain the drill.

First, there is a frame.

The frame is criss crossed with short lengths of leaders with a hook on one end and a clip on the other.

Here is a picture of John at the helm.

Underway, the hooks are baited and the clip end is hooked to a long line that is fed out as the boat moves forward.

As the line is fed out, weights are hooked to the long line to hold the line down.

Floats are positioned at the beginning, end and along the line to mark its position.

Once the line was in the water, we went on to position our fish trap in the hopes a a lobster or fish by the next day.

Then it was back to the long line to see what we had caught. No pictures here, but the catch included a bunch of small snapper.

Back at the dock, John showed us his labstah holding pen from prior catches.

That evening, John and Amie hosted us at their house with a wonderful local wine and a fresh New Zealand leg of lamb roast from the farm. Not to to mention that Amie is a gourmet chef – now how good is that.