{"id":329504,"date":"2026-03-14T14:57:17","date_gmt":"2026-03-14T14:57:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/329504\/"},"modified":"2026-03-14T14:57:17","modified_gmt":"2026-03-14T14:57:17","slug":"nervous-wait-for-leader-in-five-day-90-mile-beach-snapper-bonanza","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/329504\/","title":{"rendered":"Nervous wait for leader in five-day 90 Mile Beach Snapper Bonanza"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Snapper Bonanza is the biggest snapper surf casting competition in the world, running for five days on Ninety Mile Beach \/ Te Oneroa-a-Tohe<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"SometimesSometimes you\u2019ve just got to get in the water with them if you want to catch them. A fisher braves the surf at the 90 Mile Snapper Bonanza<\/p>\n

The Snapper Bonanza<\/a> brings fishers and supporters from throughout the country and puts several million dollars into the local economy as they battle it out over five days .<\/p>\n

The event is in its 15th year after replacing the Snapper Classic, which ended in 2009 after 27 years, and since then it has gone from strength to strength as the country\u2019s largest surfcasting competition. It offers well over $200,000 in prizes, including the $30,000 for the heaviest snapper caught and a new Mitsubishi Triton from the $150,000 in spot prizes and the major draw.<\/p>\n

While about a third of 1200 competitors \u2013 and thousands more supporters \u2013 are from the Far North, that local knowledge didn\u2019t necessarily equate to success, with only three of the previous 13 winners from the Far North, including last year\u2019s winner Rory Collings, from Kait\u0101ia<\/a>, who landed a 6.635kg fish.<\/p>\n

\"AroundAround 1200 fishers are competing in the 90 Mile Beach Snapper Bonanza in the Far North.<\/p>\n

In fact, Maxwell is proving again that he\u2019s more than a match for the Far North fishers wanting to land the big one.<\/p>\n

The Snapper Bonanza headquarters is at Waipapakauri, at the southern end of the beach \u2013 where the weigh-in and prizegiving will take place \u2013 with fishing taking place across three zones of the beach, which may change daily depending on the beach and surf conditions.<\/p>\n

Thursday was The Ryders Sports Day, when fish caught are auctioned off for local charities. About 120 fish were landed on the day and will be auctioned off at Kait\u0101ia Market from 8.30am on Saturday with money raised going to the Kait\u0101ia Fire Brigade. Last year\u2019s auction raised $10,640 for Paparore School<\/a>. <\/p>\n

Check out the 90 Mile Snapper Bonanza on social media for daily updates of the heaviest fish caught.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Snapper Bonanza is the biggest snapper surf casting competition in the world, running for five days on…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":329505,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[177128,61925,1443,7972,177127,39789,177129,36090,12416,2082,71,305,78,302,13489,1446,9388,42782,33086,111,43,139,42781,69,1562,10057,669,34381,42779,1315,5273,102],"class_list":["post-329504","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-700km","tag-61925","tag-about","tag-beach","tag-bonanza","tag-compete","tag-darin","tag-fisher","tag-fiveday","tag-for","tag-from","tag-have","tag-in","tag-its","tag-leader","tag-making","tag-maxwell","tag-mile","tag-nervous","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-ninety","tag-nz","tag-plenty","tag-problems","tag-ptiki","tag-seems","tag-snapper","tag-trip","tag-wait","tag-with"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/329504","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=329504"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/329504\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/329505"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=329504"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=329504"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=329504"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}