18.12.09

Bluenose

Bass


Matt and a 22kg Hapuka

The haul after 1 hour

The weather for Saturday was perfect, no wind no swell so at 4.30am, Matt, Murray and I head out from Tata to Baistows again. At the 100 metre mark we see small schools of bait fish being chased by fish, followed by a large splash, so we quickly put out a couple of lures and we are instantly rewarded with 3 albacore tuna. The first of the season, so with fresh bait we head to Baistows to start our first drift. one hour later we have 7 Hapuka, 2 bass and one bluenose on board. The bass both weigh 10kg each and the biggest puka weighs 22kg, with the boat full we head back home to have the boat cleaned and the fish filleted by 11 o'clock, not a bad days fishing.

13.12.09

The weekend forecast was for Saturday to be windy and Sunday to be calm, so we decided to stay at home Saturday and to head out deep Sunday. Wrong, Saturday blew strong nor west till 9 and then calmed off for the day, Sunday the same but the sea breeze arrived about 11.00 we headed out at 5am in a howling nor west 20 plus knots we went out to Morrison's 7kms out, it was pretty rough so we headed back in close for 3 hours to the winds calmed down, with the sea flattening out we headed out to Kells for a tarakihi fish (28 plus one pup puka) till midday and then headed home to clean up.
Hopefully this weekend will be good so we can get out deep?.

06.12.09 Here we go again

Saturday the 5th, the first day of the two day Ray White Real estate fishing contest the calm Friday turns into a howling easterly overnight, we get up at 4.30 am head out from Poverty Bay which is flat and calm, turn east past the island and run straight into the easterly, a quick look at each other and we turn for home just as the organisers call off day one.

Sunday I sleep in, get up at 5.15 the skies are clear and the wind has gone, I wake my son Matt and we are at the ramp with Murray by 5.40. We leave from Town and head to south rocks, we go to have a look at a mark we have and find good sign 400 metres before the mark, we don't muck round the pick is lowered and bait is in the water, it takes an hour to fill the bin with 28 Tarakihi and a small snapper. We decide to have a look out deep for Hapuka, by 9am the sea breeze is starting to get up with the left over swell of a metre the sea is starting to get a bit sloppy, we see a lot of birds showing a bit of interest over the shallows so we set some lures and troll to biastows, we do 3 drifts with the motor running into the wind and Murray picks up 2 hapukas and a small bass, by now the sea is getting quite rough, we head back to south rocks were Matt picks up a nice Kingfish and we head home . We manage a 3rd in the snapper, a 3rd in the Tarakihi and a 2nd in the Hapuka as well as picking up a couple of spot prizes, overall the sea conditions weren't good but not a bad days fishing

21.11.09 At last

The forecast is good for once, Murray Matt and I got up at 5 and head off again the sea is perfect flat , no wind and no swell, we head out again to Baistows where we went last week for the contest, we are the only boat there, we have a scan around and find a school of fish and have our first drift, Murray catches an 8kg Hapuka and a large Gem fish on his first drift, I pull up a double of Hapuka, Matt a small reef fish. Over the next hour we add 3 more Hapuka 2 blue nose to the bin which is by now full, another boat has arrived Black Betty a smaller boat about the same size as my last one , we put them onto the hapuka, we are packing up to head home (back and cleaned up before lunch - that's a rarity) Black Betty starts her engine and it doesn't sound good, before long we have her under tow, 29 km's to go, we arrive back at the ramp at 2pm so much for a early day. I don't mind helping as we are a small club in a big ocean and we all help each other, you never know when it might be your turn for a tow home.

14.11.09 discount fishing hapuka hunt

Same old story again, Friday - sea perfect, small swell, light winds. 10 o'clock Friday night a southerly front comes through "GREAT", not again, how many weekends has this happened, anyhow we get up at 5.30am and head to the ramp, last nights storm has gone and the sky is clear with a very light south breeze, the sea is lumpy but smooth and there is a half to one metre swell. Being a contest Murray and I head out to the drop off to look for Hapuka (about 29km's straight out to sea) we do a few drifts and I pick up one blue nose while Murray has caught and released a couple of small sharks (not fun when fishing in 220 metres of water). We move to outer penguins and do a few drifts catching a trumpeter (good eating) by lunch the sea breeze has replaced the very light breeze turning the sea to custard, so with a better forecast for Sunday we pull the pin and head home

Sunday - Did I say a better forecast...not.. gale force north westerlies 20-30 knots the swell has increased to 2.5 metres, 5.00am at the ramp, 7.00am back home for breakfast. Only the big boys boats are out today. The second contest of the season and we still suck...

Footnote. Monday back to work, swell flat, winds light....great... what have I done to upset the weather gods

07.11.09

Another Friday, another front comes through (southerlies clearing). Saturday up again at 5.30am, no wind - yeah right, left the ramp and the sea breeze is already blowing we head to Kells lots of sign on the sounder but nothing biting, so we head out to the back of penguins heaps more sign and the wind is getting up to 20 knots. We anchor up and start catching tarakihi (25) and one small pup hapuka, lots of birds working all around, we see 3 large bullets go past us at speed I guess they are albacore tuna heading to a work up, I hope that is a good omen for the up and coming game season. So with enough to feed our guests for our annual fireworks night it was back to the ramp and home to clean up the boat.

25-26.10.2009

Labour weekend is the first contest of the season, the contest was delayed a day due to bad weather. Sunday morning we got up at the crack of dawn 5.30 and headed to the ramp, the sea was calm and the swell slight, we headed off to our secret spot (Hams rock) we burlied up for 2 hours and caught nothing, with our confidence dropping we went for a look around the area as the sea was beautiful, not finding anything worth fishing on we headed out to tinman where we caught a dozen tarakihi and a pup hapuka, on the way home we stopped at gables and caught a small snapper.... nothing to weigh but we had a feed.

Monday we got up before the crack of dawn and headed to the ramp at 4.30, the sea was flat as, we threw out our game plan and headed deep to biastows for a drift fish in 200 metres of water, we managed to catch 2 hapuka 7.5 and 8.6kg, 2 small bluenose (beautiful eating) and 2 small gem fish (great smoked). With the sea breeze picking up we headed to south rocks where we added a small snapper to the bin, by now the sea breeze was in full force so it was time to go , again nothing to weigh in but it was our best deep drift fish so far.

03.10.09

With the forecast good but the outlook bad we headed out early from tata ramp, we cruised out to Tinman 25 km's east, their was plenty of sign but anchoring was not good with cross currents to the light wind we caught a lot of rubbish fish that were returned so we decided to move we picked up a 6 hook dropper rig that contained 4 large red cod (more rubbish fish). Conditions were still good so we moved to gables again we had trouble anchoring on top of the fish sign, we managed 6 tarakihi and 1 pup hapuka, we boated 3 kingfish that were released being just undersized. By lunch the wind had picked up from the northwest so it was time to go, the closer to land the stronger the wind 20 -25 knots, the sea was getting quite choppy I am so impressed with the surtees bar crusher, she handled the conditions well, cruising back at 23 kms without any bother. By Sunday the weather had turned to custard again with southerlies and pouring rain.

02.10.09

Over the last few weekends the weather gods have been playing games, excellent conditions during the working week and turning to crap Friday night, so to beat the weather Muz and I took Friday off work and went fishing. Yes fine weather finaly, we headed out south rocks we first went to the shallows but wasn't any fish sign so we went to a rock that has done us well in the past, we fished in 50 metres of water catching 20 tarakihi and 1 snapper (all good eating)by lunch, the sea breaze was getting up so we headed for a look in deeper water past Westpac with no success.

13.09.09

Muz and I headed out to gables the weather was fine with a 10k northerly making the sea a bit sloppy, we searched the area for sign but there wasn't much, we tryed to anchor on a small patch of fish but kept missing them, wind and current were working against each other. All we caught were barracuda (while removing one from my hook over the side, a seal came from under the water and grabed the fish i nearly brown stained)
we then went to penguins for a tarakihi fish and went home

spiney dogs

The weather was fine and calm, so as to not waste the day I took Keith out for a quick fish at kouri banks, we set a long line and anchored up all we caught were spiney dogs (lemon fish or sharks) so we moved spots but keith started to go a bit green so we pulled up the set line, 17 out of 25 hooks - spiney dogs, to top things off keith emptied his stomach so we went home.

summer is coming

muz and I went out yesterday for a quick tarakihi fish in close, as the fish have moved into the inshore rocks over the last couple of weeks, we ended going out to morrisons about 5 km out from the ramp. the sea was flat, the sun was shining and the wind was not there, it was a lovely day, we managed to catch 28 tarakihi between us and be back for lunch, using $18 worth of fuel,

fog

Spring is in the air, we have had a week of a large high parked over Gisborne, giving us fine days and little wind, we finally took Gazebo out on saturday leaving at 6.30 from the harbour in a thick fog, that stayed with us till about 7 km's out to sea where we burst out into sunshine, we headed to south rocks where we drift fished in 120 metres catching 1 small pup puka, we then went out to 220 metres for a drift, catching a couple of sharks. After using up heaps of energy hauling up sharks from that depth we left to go into south shallows. We found good sign at 55 metres catching 18 snapper in less than an hour as well as releasing a further 6, with the bin full we headed home on a glassy sea. A good days fishing.

A gap in the weather

Finaly a break in the weather "NOT" But in desperation we went out for a fish, we should have stayed at home, we traveled 90km looking for signs of fish but there were none, we managed to catch 2 (yes 2) fish for tea. The sea was very sloppy with a metre plus swell and a light southerly wind, a good time to test your sealegs, the boat preformed well even though the fish didn't play the game, there is allways next week.

Hi, finally a break in the weather, what a shocker this winter has been so far, the water temp has gotten down to 14.7 degrees out at south rocks, we were able to finally take Gazebo out for its 2nd trip on Saturday, the weather forecast wasn't great but Saturday looked like a day of calm between bad weather systems. We left from town and went to westpac about 26 Kms out and spent a couple of hours drift fishing in 100 metres of water in a 1meter swell and a glass sea, there was very little current which isn't good for fishing. We pulled the pin after catching nothing and went over to couple spots we fish at south rocks catching 7 tarakihi and 3 snapper, we pulled the pin again and had a look around at various marks and decided to head home, by mid afternoon the swell had built to 1.5 to 2 metres with little wind, we saw Ariel reef breaking for the first time in the distance, the reef is 12 km offshore rising out of 60 metres of water to 3 metres below the surface at low tide - (it looked surf able from were we were) we had half a dozen albatross around the boat feeding on the small throw backs we had caught as well as 2 seals. the boat went really well I am very pleased with it.

Queens Birthday weekend

5 of us went to the Cape Runaway for Queens Birthday, Johnstone and his son Ethan, Cod and his son Sam and Me. We arrived Friday night and immediately got in to a bit of wine tasting, it was good to be there etc etc ( thanks to Zelus Sun winery, Mary and Clive donated the wine for tasting.. excellent, thanks)

wine/beer/vodka/rum/ tasting.

Saturday saw us fishing on Cod follies rock, the day was flat and calm with a half metre lift, a little to big to get on the cape rocks. Fishing was slow with 3 snapper, 1 trevally and a large blue cod being caught, it may had something to do with the big boys heads having a dull thud behind their eyes.

Sunday the wind changed over night blowing from the norwest and then changing to the south, we left from Lottin and went to Hams Rock. The fishing was very good with 18 snapper caught, we released 8 and kept 10. Sam caught the fish of his life a 10.02kg snapper and Ethan followed it up with a 4.45kg one (last year on the same trip Ethan caught a 12.90kg snapper, an outstanding feat)

Sundays catch

Johnstone giving a speech

Sams 10.02kg Snapper

Monday was home day, the southerly had really kicked in with snow on the peaks of the hills to the south of Kemps farm (where we stay) and the mountains and foot hills all the way home were covered

Mount Hikurangi hidden by clouds, these are her foothills

gazebo

gazebo's maiden voyage

Snapper

Terakihi

Today I took Gazebo put for her first voyage, she went really well, her bow cut through the small swell and wind chop really well giving her a real soft trip. We went to south rocks which is 16 nautical miles out from Gisborne. South rocks is a large rocky reef system that covers several sq kms, we caught 7 terakihi, 2 snapper and a trevally (all good eating). The fishing was trying as the current and wind direction kept pushing us off the mark, Overall I was very pleased with the boat.

The fishing trip to Cape Runaway was a good relaxing time, unfortunately the weather played up, leaving us a large swell which made it too dangerous to get on the rocks where we like to fish. Johnstone won the green jacket for the best fish with a 13.88kg kingfish.

Welcome

Welcome to the fishing adventures of Gazebo,
Gazebo is a Surtees barcrusher 6.1 mtr hardtop boat I have just purchased, I have decided to upgrade my Mclay 5 mtr softtop for a bigger boat with more room. more range and more comfort. I fish out of Gisborne New Zealand for fun and pleasure and the odd competition.
This is my first attempt at blogging so bear with me, I will add photos in time and catch reports when the weather allows me to get out to sea.

Tomorrow the boys (9 of us) are heading to Cape Runaway for 5 days of rock fishing, the boys are the white pointer merc cricket team, we have been going away on this trip now for 16 years, so it is a must for all of us, I will give a report when we get back.....