Topwater Fishing’s Roots in NZ, by Mark Armistead

“The real “light bulb” moment for me came shortly after whilst one of the Japanese gurus came to stay at our place whilst conducting one of his White Island trips. They returned late one day and even though there was a significant language barrier, I could quickly tell form the excitement of the group that their day out was something special…”

New Zealand fishing stalwart Mark Armistead reminisces on what he believes to be topwater fishing's debut appearance on NZ shores...

As has happened with a few of our recent pioneering fishing methods, the Japanese anglers were at the forefront of the evolution of modern top water fishing for kingfish. I had heard a few whispers of these revolutionary new lures that were making a big impact on the GT fishing community. However, it wasn’t until I visited the jigging and popper festival in Tokyo that I was made aware of the impact topwater fishing was having on the local’s chasing kingfish in Japan. I went to the show as a mad keen jigger wanting to learn more from the masters of the jigging technique, but the buzz at the show was all about top water kingfish and I ended up leaving with more questions than answers.

The real “light bulb” moment for me came shortly after whilst one of the Japanese gurus came to stay at our place whilst conducting one of his White Island trips. They returned late one day and even though there was a significant language barrier, I could quickly tell form the excitement of the group that their day out was something special. Whilst the verbal account of the trip was a little hard to follow, the amazing footage they showed of huge pack attacks of massive kingfish demonstrated quite clearly what it was that they were so excited about. It is important remember at this stage that nobody was seriously targeting kings on top water, at that stage it was incredible behaviour to witness from large kingfish.

An old school Orion Nambas lure

Pretty much the next day we scoured every shop in New Zealand looking for stickbaits. A few were catering for the GT market with big poppers, but a true stick bait was hard to find. Tucked away in a dark corner of a local Top Catch we managed to find a couple of Heru stick baits that were being used on some of the Nomad GT trips. Luckily, we were already using some big Daiwa Expedition and Dogfight reels so we had the base of some good kit to have a crack. Our first attempt on our own we really didn’t have a clue what we were doing however we still managed to raise a few packs of good-sized fish. On this day I also saw what was and still is the biggest kingfish I’ve ever seen, it came in with a pack of nice sized fish in the 15-20 kg range and this thing just dwarfed them all. It had a big scar along its side and pretty much followed one of those Herus to the back of the boat turned broadside and then casually swam off. It was possibly in the world record range.

We kept plugging away with our unrefined techniques for a while and it wasn’t until we had our first dedicated top water trip that we really started to get things sussed. Lucky for me this trip was with the top water master and inventor of the Carpenter lure; Konishi San. Again, we really didn’t have a clue what we were doing and pretty much were just winging it as far as locations go. Lucky for me we had been having a decent run of good sized kings at Tuhua reef taking slow trolled livies in the shallows. I figured this was as good a spot as any to try it out, the only problem was the conditions at the time were 15 knot easterlies and a 2 metre swell. I don’t know if it was the breaking water or just the fish had never seen these lures but pretty much every time we manoeuvred the boat close enough to get a cast in close to the reef we would get a hook up. It was some chaotic scenes as at time the fish were hitting the lures in where the water was breaking over the reef, we ended up straightening hooks, pulled hooks and busted off some monsters but in between the losses we also landed some great fish. The day was capped off with a fish in the 30 kg range pulled out of the shallows by Konishi San himself.

That pretty much kicked it off for me and from then on I was obsessed with top water kingfish fishing. One thing that is noteworthy from those days is those big Daiwa reels we were using back then are still part of my frontline top water setups. The Dogfight and Expedition reels have been absolutely punished, they were used on my charter boat and got bashed and thrashed by customers, they have been on multiple Ranfurly Banks/Three Kings trips and been on GT trips to the islands. I still find it hard to believe that they are still going strong and even helped me catch a nice top water king last weekend, it is a testament to how durable these reels are.

By Mark Armistead