As for the fishing that evening. There was a few snapper caught the evening you left toward blacks beach. Two anglers I know went to the right to wards tahanui stream sucked the kumara. Blacks has been fishing bloody well, you just need to get down the far end in the right spot.

Went to Whakaki on sunday night, after driving about 4k down the beach, I realised I had no bait cotton, it was ratshit. Ended up catching a kahawai, so didn't really need bait elastic, caught a handfull of gurnard under the cover of the moon, and 6 decent snapper. Lots of little tip overs that come off also.