It was Naomi’s second time fishing the popular Beach & Boat competition from Marsden Cove. She had a goal: beat her last year’s second placed 5.7kg kingfish.

Armed with the Catch Jig-Xtreme rod, JG5000S reel and an array of jigs, most notably Long John Sliders and Squidwings, as well as her “I’ve got this” attitude, she was ready.

She knew of a couple of spots that had produced the goods last year but as is so often the case as a visiting angler, was relying on locals to share their knowledge and hopefully a few hot fishing spots.

After an unsuccessful morning on the kings, hopes (and arms) were fading. With the clock ticking, Skip headed for any area he’d heard rumours about.

A quick scout around and the sounder lit up! A 200gm Long John Slider in Shady Lady was deployed to 45-metres.

It seemed like more of the same from the morning jigging session – no one was interested.

Several drops and retrievals with no takers, then suddenly, over the best marks, boom! Fish on!

After a testing few minutes, Naomi started to get some line back. Of course, it ain’t over till it’s over with kingfish, the green battler getting its head and charging back to the bottom.

Eventually, a combination of team work, quality gear and sweat won the day, and the fish was in the boat. A quick photo was grabbing before popping it in the bin and repeating the drift.

Naomi had just got her breath back when she was hooked up again. Another battle between angler and fish, and into the boat came a similar sized fish.

This was looking good. These fish were certainly bigger than last year’s but would they big enough to take out a prize?

Repeated the drifts with consistent hook-ups – sometimes even doubles hook-ups – continued for some time and in the end, all but three were released.

With the clock ticking, they called it a day and headed back to “weigh in”.

The scales proved both bigger fish were similar in weight. In the end, Naomi’s best fish weighed 10.06kg. She had achieved her goal of beating last year’s fish, and in doing so also took out second place kingfish for ladies’ best fish overall.

Incidentally, she also placed second for kahawai ladies best fish overall, second place John dory ladies best fish overall, as well as mystery weight John dory.

A rather successful weekend’s work even though the fishing was hard and good fish were hard to come by.