Do you remember what got you into kayak fishing?

I used to fish from the beach and rocks. I would spend days and nights waiting for a single bite. I did catch fish, don’t get me wrong but the fish were few and far between. This gave me plenty of time to watch the world go by. One thing I was beginning to notice was the amount of people launching their kayaks with fishing rods sticking up from them and paddling off into the distance. It wasn’t long before I had managed to hire a kayak from a local store and head out with a few mates to have a crack at fishing from a floating piece of plastic.

That was all it took. I immediately started saving and pretty soon had me my own piece of plastic to paddle around in.

I started to spend every waking moment out on the water fishing. My girlfriend must have thought I had lost the plot but I just couldn’t get enough. It opened up a whole new world and I loved it.

When the weather didn’t allow me to get out, I would start looking through all the fishing forums for tips on what fish were round and what baits were working. Through one of these forums I met up with Shane Kelly and Hayden Walker. I made a plan to join them on a trip to the Coromandel for a kayak fishing competition. I had never really fished many other places (even when shore fishing) but this Coromandel place was one of the coolest fishing experiences I have had. On one morning the alarms were set to 2am so we could drive four hours along gravel roads to fish a super remote spot.

In between the comp weekends, we would fish the local waters together, which helped me a lot in the transition from shore fishing to kayak fishing. Unfortunately Hayden got super busy with work before the second event and couldn’t make any more weekends away with us.

I had never intended on fishing the entire Orton Kayak Fishing series so never entered to compete in it, just the individual comps. Shane’s season was looking fantastic with him leading the points coming in to the final event. After a super long drive just to compete (try 26 hours to and from) Shane was pipped to the post on the final day to take out a second place in the entire Orton Series.

We wanted to form a team and compete in the following season with guns blazing. Shane and I wrote a proposal showing our achievements throughout the 2012/2013 season and what we could offer our potential sponsors. It wasn’t too long before we had Viking Kayaks here in New Zealand on board to help us out.

The Viking Maniyaks were born.

The Maniyaks are based in Wellington, New Zealand. Wellington’s fishery is incredibly diverse. We have wide variety of species that come and go depending on season including terakihi, trevally, snapper, king fish, blue cod, hapuka and John Dory to name a few. We have the ability to paddle out to 160 metres (524 feet) in the kayaks from the beach if weather allows. If any of you are planning a trip to New Zealand, Wellington would have to be high on your list to visit. Wellington is smack bang in the middle of the country but all comp weekends are based north of us. The closest is still a five-hour drive away so we do a fair amount of travelling (around 80 hours over the season). This goes to show our level of commitment and enthusiasm.

What we are aiming to do this season is to try and better Shane’s individual placing from last year and give the teams section a good nudge. We have formed a fantastic friendship with not just each other but all of the people competing. We can’t wait for the new season to start early in October. Feel free to follow us on our journey. We would love to share with you what we are lucky enough to experience along the way. 

Orton Events:  Run by Justin Orton. Orton Events are organizers of the premier kayak fishing competition in New Zealand. Supported by all the major NZ companies and entered by just about everyone. The competitions offer wonderful opportunities to fish NZ's prime spots with some of the greatest.  http://www.ortoneventsnz.co.nz

 Viking Kayaks:  Viking Kayaks are a New Zealand company and a great support to the NZ kayak fishing community. http://www.vikingkayaks.co.nz