28.08.10 Calm weather at last

Clive hauling his first shark up from 2oo metres

Finally a calm forecast lead to a calm outcome. Murray, Clive and myself left Tata ramp at 6.30 am and headed out to BS1A to have a drift for a Puka or 2 in 200 metres of water. The lack of any current unfortunately bought out the sharks, we found heaps of sign but ended up with sharks - Clive was happy, one of his wants was to catch a shark, he can now cross that off. The only other boat out with us Tzar managed to catch a Kingfish of 20kg's from 200 metres a feat not often heard of, not to be out done Murray manged to land one also but his was just legal so we released it. After getting sick and tired of sharks we headed back to the spot where we caught all the snapper last trip, yet again heaps of sign but nothing biting (no current). The last time I took Clive out was the only time we have never caught a fish, so the word Jonah (a person who brings bad luck on a boat) was starting to be mentioned. We then decided to try a new spot a cliff that rises out of 100 metres to 60 metres, Clive was soon into Terakihi so his new nick name was thrown overboard, it was slow but steady and we ended with 22 Terakihi (enough for everyone to have a good feed). With only 2 days to go to the start of spring, today was beautiful warm and calm my face even has a touch of red from the sun - come on the warm weather.

08.08.10 Total cock up

Well I thought I knew how to read the weather, how I totally cocked this weekend up. The forecast for Saturday was light winds in the morning rising to 2o knots from the north in the afternoon and a solid 1 metre swell. The swell was solid Friday night and with rising winds forecast we thought we would wait till Sunday. Saturday was calm all day ....no wind at all. Sundays forecast was morning drizzle easing and light winds tending from the west, 10-15 knots in the afternoon, well Sunday morning 6.00 am woke to the sound of rain on the roof so I rolled over, 7.30 am woke to the sound of silence looked outside and the drizzle had gone and there was no wind at all, texted Murray "be there soonish", 9.00am finally at the ramp and launched Gazebo and headed out to south rocks (20 km out) 5 ks out the wind started to pick up from the south (where all our bad weather comes from) we arrived at our spot in choppy seas and a rising swell - in fact it was dammed unpleasant. Our rock had good sign on it so we dropped the anchor so we could get a quick feed and head home but the anchor keep dragging we were only able to catch 1 Tarakihi, after several attempts to anchor we gave up and went to another spot we liked that was on the way home. This too had good sign and was much rocker than the last spot, we dropped the anchor and was rewarded with a couple of tarakihi, soon we had a snapper on board, and it was all on. The snapper bullied the tarakihi out of the way and we were catching snapper as fast as we could get our gear to the bottom, 17 snapper on board in under a hour, the snapper were good fat 1 - 2 kg specimens and our bin was filled - lest we had some reward for the unpleasant conditions. We pulled the anchor and home we went.
One day we'll get to fish in perfect conditions (hopefully).

31.07.2010 New grounds

Trumpeter (very good eating)

Saturday morning the forecast was good with a large high over the top of Gisborne, so off came the covers again and a quick hose down to wash away the frost. Gazebo was loaded by 8 and outside Murray's house a few minutes latter. We decided to launch from Tatapouri ramp so we could go east, to a secret spot Murray was given by a ex commercial fisherman. The only problem with a Tata launch is that we have to use the clubs tractor and it means self launching and getting wet while getting into the boat, that ok in the summer but in winter and in a frost it's a wee bit chilly. We headed out to the secret spot we've called TR1A which is 38 km's offshore to find a mate of mine already there fishing (so much for it being secret) half an hour latter we were joined by another boat (yeah right - really secret seeing that there was only 6 boats out). We were drift fishing in 180 metres picking up the usual toothed species like shark and barracuda and one nice trumpeter (really good eating). The story was "should have been here last week, boats were filling up" sadly some of us have to work during the week. As the wind picked up we headed back to gables to catch a few Tarakihi for tea, we found a good rock but were pack raped by Rat Kingfish (undersized fish) we struggled to get our gear to the bottom without multi hook ups as the gear went down. We put 8 Tarakihi into the Bin and called it a day.