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.