Family Fishing Weekend at the Mercury Islands with the Kids

Some of my fondest memories where I developed my love of fishing, involve overnight trips to Great Mercury Island on my Dad’s launches. It is just such a beautiful part of the world. There is always somewhere to get out of the wind, chase snapper, catch a feed of crayfish or scallops, or just chill out and enjoy some of NZ’s best scenery.

I’ve just got back from two nights up there with my two kids, Bella and Oscar, and we had an absolute ball! My 7.7m Senator is perfect for the three of us to overnight in comfort. Bella has recently finished her dive course, and was a natural on the dives we did, finding a lot of the crayfish we caught!

Oscar was more interested in the fishing, and any chance we got he was wetting a line. We straylined some old spots and caught some really nice snapper…

We feasted on raw scallops, crumbed scallops and had enough to bring back for a real nice feed of scallops in their shell on the BBQ with mates the night we got home.

You can’t beat a good feast on the boat after a big day of fishing and diving!

Oscar’s best snapper was hooked while I was cooking up bacon and eggs for breakfast in the morning, in a glassy calm spot just out of Mercury Cove! Paradise!

What I love about the Mercs is once you have enough for a feed you can just find a nice bay, of which there is pretty much one for every wind direction, park up have a feed and chill out. We spent a really awesome afternoon in Whalers Cove, on the south side of Great Mercury Island. We had gone for a couple of swims and then a big bronzie came and patrolled the bay, we thought we’d stay in the boat after that! But it was awesome to watch him cruising around!