Surfcasting 27.02.10

Young Nicks Head to the west
Port of Gisborne to the east

least the water is warm

You have to get wet to catch snapper

After the other night I thought I would try the same spot again but in the middle of the day to see if the snapper were still there in full sun light. I arrived at 10.30am, first cast resulted in a 32cm snapper "great", over the next hour I caught 2 small trevellies 3 small Kahawai and a herring (all released), it shows the area is holding a good number of bait fish, hopefully it yield snapper on the contest next weekend

Surfcasting 23.02.2010

With a couple of surf casting contests coming up in the next few weeks I thought i better dust off the rods and get some practice in. After tea I head down to midway beach just as the sun is starting to set, I check out a spot we fished last year that had a good Pipi (type of shell fish that lives in the sand in the surf zone) bed, the spot looks real good even had a group of birds sitting on the sea behind the waves, I cast out 7 baits until it gets to dark - catching 3 snapper (26,29,32cm) and one Kahawai (small) all were released, good shows the area has good potential for the contest.

Marlin and Tuna hunt 20.02.10

On the way home

it's rougher than it looks

several hours later "not so keen"

Dean first shift "keen as"

With Murray not available I thought I would give this contest a miss as we totally suck at catching Marlin and big Tuna, but I was offered a place on a friends boat.

Day one, we didn't go out as we all had to work

Day two, was cancelled due to a southerly front which bought rain, wind and a swell.

Day three, we gathered at the ramp at 5am and headed out in the dark , we only got 50 meters when the motor stalled, we found we had a fertilizer sack rapped around the prop so spent the next half hour cutting the sack away(thanks to those who throw rubbish in the sea). Finally we were off in the 8.5 meter White Pointer "Men At Work" the sea was still sloppy from yesterdays weather, we headed to the dog leg with the boat ploughing though the seas with ease. At Westpac we set our lures and started to troll, going through the dog leg we had a double strike and landed 1 out 2 Albacore tuna around the 13kg mark each. We then headed out to the Turahine rise, Rex our skipper set the auto pilot and settle in the cabin and went to sleep, we trolled for 3 hours I thought something was wrong, worked out where we were and we had gone passed the rise by 2 hours so we turned around and headed back to the rise and spent the next 5 hours trolling the rise we picked up another double strike of albacore about the same weight, the boat ahead of us "In the Red" caught and landed a 70kg Big Eye Tuna. By lunch time the sea breeze was in full mode 25 knots and the sea was getting ugly but the White Pointer was handling the conditions alright, even the crew where good, mid afternoon we started the long haul back, around Nolders we had another double strike and landed another 2 Albacore of around the same weight. We got back to the ramp at 7pm and weighed in our heaviest fish at 13.36kg.

Day four, again we headed out just after 5 am the sea conditions looked a lot better than yesterday, again we went to Westpac and set our lures, this time we headed north after an hour we had a strike which was much larger than before it turned out to be a Marco shark around 50kgs, not what we wanted an hour later another strike this time Dean landed a 20.38kg Albacore which ended up being the 3rd heaviest albacore for the tournament. Three hours later Rex landed a 8kg Albacore and it was time for lines out. That was the contest over for another year.

I was really impressed by the fuel consumption of the diesel engine, on the troll around 4 litres an hour and at 18 knots around 18 litres - puts petrol engines to shame as it would cost twice as much or more for Gazebo's 4 stroke to cover the same distance in those conditions.

14.02.10

New day better forecast I get up at 5, look outside see large frontal clouds and hear the wind in the trees - text Murray go back to bed, 8.00am wake up fine calm day - Bugger - we are on the water by 9ish. the sea is flat and calm we head to BS1A for a few drifts, First drop a small bass and a Gemfish, soon another Gemfish, then it went quiet, I managed to pull up a Terakihi on a size 16 circle hook from 225 meters, much easier to catch them in 35 meters. the day was perfect with light winds all day, the sea temp was 22.3 but we couldn't find any bird activity, the first marlin (117kg stripe) for the season was caught at Roman nose so the action should start hotting up over the next few weeks.

13.02.10

Back at home again, we head out at 6am into a not so good weather forecast, our mission was to go to new grounds for us, the dog leg area, which is 49km south east of Gisborne. The forecast had the northwest wind rising in to north to 40knots, as we headed out the wind was 10 to 15 knots but were rising so we changed plans and headed under the cliffs at the Whareratas, we had a look around checking out different marks but not finding anything worth fishing, the wind had eased so we headed back out to the dog leg on the way we found a nice area of foul in 50 meters of water producing a few Terakihi over a couple of drifts (worth checking out when its calm) the water temp was 21 degrees so we put out our plastics and started a troll home in the yet again raising winds, we managed to catch 3 small albacore tuna. the closer we got to home the winder it got, till we had a full on pound into the gale force northwesterly. I'm real happy with the way the Surtees handled herself. Tomorrows forecast is much better.

06.02.2010 Nauti Girls contest

Lunch on the island
Team C-JAZ

Team Gazebo (Deb taking a snooze)

Gazebo's team Deb, Trish, Lianne and myself left the ramp at 5am our other team Craig, Michelle, Jan and Kerry left just before us on C-JAZ, after yesterdays poor results we went to the logging spot as we knew it had contained snapper, fishing was slow with Deb catching 2 small snapper which we released and Trish catching 1 Kahawai which was of size and was put in the bin.
We spent most of the day checking different spots hoping to find snapper, Finally at 2pm Trish managed to land a 34cm snapper, lest we would have something to weigh in, as it was the snapper wasn't far off the average snapper weight worth $1000 and the winning snapper's weight was 2.2kg.
The night ended with a party on Jan's deck, we'll try again next year.
Sunday we loaded the boat and set off on the long trip home.

05.02.2010

Calm waters
beautiful old working boat
Sea lettuce and lots of it
The weather has improved, but the bar is still a bit rough so we take the kids out for a fish in the harbour, but our luck has changed we can't find a fish any where not even a bite, with the sounds of we're bored, we take the kids back to the jetty and head back to find snapper, but nothing has changed - nothing - zip - zero so we head back in with the contest on tomorrow our hopes have been dealt a serious blow.

04.02.2010

The ones we kept
It doesn't get much better
Murray with another snapper

The bar is still closed so back onto the harbour again, we spend most of the day checking out different areas, but end up at yesterdays spot, on the turn of the tide the snapper came on we ended up catching 16 snapper the heaviest weighed 3.4 kgs which we are told is a very good fish for this end of the harbour out of the 33 snapper we caught we only kept 9 for the rest of the gang that was turning up for the weekend, the rest were released (17-16 to me). Sea lettuce is a problem in the harbour(looks like the lettuce we eat) it raps around your line in the Strong currents found in the harbour, at mid tide the current is at it's strongest and the lettuce gets to be a big problem and we call of the rest of the day and head back to the Bach for a beer or two.

03.02.2010

Logging on Matakana island
Waiting for action
No need to get up early with low tide at 5.30am we had a cooked breakfast and headed out at 10am. The bar was still closed so with the ladies contest on Saturday we headed out to find fishing spots with out much success until we anchored near a logging operation on Matakana island, where we caught another 6 snapper (9-8 to Murray) and back to the ramp before dark. It is so good to fish in a flat calm sheltered waters.

02.02.2010 Bowentown

Bowentown fishing club and ramp
After a washed out long weekend Murray and I headed over to the sunny Bay Of Plenty to stay at a family members Bach at Bowentown, we arrived mid afternoon to the same weather system we had left but not as bad, the harbour was calm, but the bar to the sea was closed with a 2 metre swell and rough seas. We unloaded our gear and launched the boat, it was low tide , in fact a very low tide as we found out, after leaving the ramp we went about 50 meters then grounded the boat, having to push the boat another 100 meters until finding deeper water before we were under way. The water was dirty from all the rain but we managed to pick up 8 snapper (5 - 3 to me)returning to the ramp at 10pm in the dark.