25.04.10

After spending the last weekend giving the boat a good clean and scrub after a busy summer of fishing the forecast was to good to ignore. Saturday dawned fine and calm so I mowed the lawns - dug the garden etc, it was to much for me to handle, so that night I texted Murray to see if he wanted to go out Sunday "yip" was the answer. We had a late start - 9am and left from the harbour going to westpac (a bank 28km's south of Gisborne). On the way to Westpac we saw a small area of bird activity, so we chucked over a lure to see what was in the water. A couple of passes later I had a strike and landed a small Albacore tuna. 10 minutes later we had 4 lures out, half an hour latter we managed to land a nice Skippie but the going was hard, there was a lot of sign down deep but little action on the surface(maybe a bit cold for them (17.8 degrees)). We called it quits and headed out to Westpac. The sea breeze was just starting so we used it to do a drift to see what was there, it didn't take long to find a patch of fish and down went the anchor. We were straight into Tarakihi and some good sized ones, after an hour I had a good hit and managed to boat a Kingfish of about 16kg. Our anchor started to drag in the sea breeze, we pulled it up and noticed a patch of badly frayed rope, looks as if a shark must of had a bit of a chew on it. Not wanting to risk losing our anchor we decided to head home with the 16 Tarakihi and 1 Kingfish we had caught , enough to feed our families and friends.

18.04.10 Straylining

Better than watching paint dry

Heavy - 10.4kg & 6.4kg

With the forecast looking good I rang Muz to see if he wanted to go for a snapper fish (stray lining), he said stray lining is like "watching paint dry and his weekend suddenly got busy". I gave Johnstone a ring and he and his son Ethan were keen as. So leaving Muz to catch up on all the jobs he had been neglecting at home we headed to Aerial reef (AR8A). The wind - a light westerly was perfect for the current, we dropped the anchor and over the side went the sack of berley, it took Johnstone 15 minutes before the first pannie (good eating size snapper) was in the bin. Another 30 minutes we had 4 pannies in the bin, nothing big. I was using baby squid and bonito tied together but only the bonito was being taken. It's strange 2 weeks ago the snapper were nailing baby squid but today they weren't even interested. I changed my trace from the 2 hook (Main and keeper) to a single 9.0 hook and a slab of bonito, first hit resulted in a 6.4kg snapper followed by a 3kg. At this stage I was using 2 rods so I put one away and just had one out, I had another good hit, it felt like a shark but you never know. Lucky for me it wasn't, it turned out to be a 10.4kg snapper and a good looking specimen. With 2 good snappers in the bin I put my gear away and let Johnstone and Ethan fill the bin some nice 2 and 3kg snappers which had started to come on. The berley ran out at 11am and with the bin full with 16 snapper we headed home, to get home before lunch is a rarity, another good days fishing on Gazebo.
Stray lining - 16, Paint drying - 0

JRT Building contest 03.04.10

JRT building contest is the final contest of the season.
Good Friday we headed out for a skippy (Skipjack tuna) hunt. We sailed a large 60km loop over all the major reefs for one small albie (albacore tuna). The sea conditions wasn't good with a large 1-1.5 metre swell and calm winds changing to a sea breeze, meant it didn't look good for the 3rd, the first day of the contest.
Day one; We head out from town and head to Arial reef to go stray lining for snapper. Leaving from town adds another 20 km's to the trip but with the swell and forecast sea breeze its easier to get the boat on and off the trailer. The sea at day break is all ready choppy and the shallows at Arial a washing machine but lest there are no breaking waves like yesterday, we set the anchor and put the first sack of berley to soak. The wind and tide are against us but we manage to pull in a couple of pan size snapper. At full tide the tide turns and we have both wind and tide going the right way and we start to catch snapper. I manage a small just legal kingfish, but it swallowed the hooks and blood is coming out of it's gills, so goes in the bin, Murray follows with a nice 8kg kingie and the snappers are getting bigger with a number of bust offs and big fish spitting the hooks. By 3.oo pm our bin is full and we have had enough of the washing machine and head back, we weigh in our largest snapper at 3.95kg.

Day 2; The forecast isn't good but we head out again from town to find the sea has calmed down and there is very little wind "yay". We reach Arial reef in no time, Murray loves stray lining "not" and suggests we go deep for Hapuka while it's calm, but I love stray lining and with a worsting forecast decide to stay here. We set the anchor and yet again tide and wind are against us, we set the sack of berley and we are straight into snapper. The snapper are a lot bigger, with fish in the 2 - 3 kg range and the odd 4kg, I hook a good size one and land a 6.75kg snapper. With full tide the tide slows to nothing and the snapper go off the bite and are replaced by sharks and barracuda. We try for another hour but all we are doing is keeping the fishing shops in business, with the cota and sharks munching through our gear. We pull the pin and head out deeper as the wind has dropped completely. We arrive at baistows and drop down our puka rigs, after a couple of sharks are reeled in from 225 metres Murray catches a nice little 8kg Hapuka, with that we head home.
My 6.75kg snapper wins the snapper section (that's 4 in a row for Gazebo, we are on a roll). The contest season has finished. and we wait now for the new season in October, still the snapper hang around till July and the tarakihi and Hapuka fishing will get better with the colder water.