25.10.10 Perfection

Monday being a holiday, we planned to head out to pick up the cray pots and have a quick fish but we ended up having a major change of plans. We again headed out from Tata ramp at 5.30am the sea was mirror flat, we pulled our pots to find only 2 legal crayfish which went in the live bait tank to keep them fresh, we were amazed to find the 2 scarifies from yesterday still alive. the sea was flat so we headed out to TR1A our other spot on the drop off, we headed into the big red blob of the rising sun. Tr1A is 38 ks out and was calm as just a slight swell on the glassy sea, our first drift yielded 2 nice Trumpeter, our next a couple of sharks, our next a couple more trumpeter, next more sharks, next a couple of big Gemfish and then more sharks. It puts a bit of strain on the old back hauling sharks up from 190 metres. By lunch time still no wind, we decided to have a bit of a look around for more rocks in the area. A couple of Ks away we found another rocky outcrop with good sign, our first drop each yielded a couple of Hapuka, then sharks, then a couple of Trumpeter and then more sharks. By 2 o'clock we were out of bait and the sea was still glass... magic. We were able to fillet the 7 Trumpeter, 2 Hapuka and 2 Gemfish on board to save the mess at home. What a day I hope we have many more like it, but we could do without the sharks.

26.10.10 A big fat zero

Holiday weekend the forecast was great with a big fat high centered on the North Island. Friday was southerly and it took Saturday to clean up, but Sunday was looking good - well almost, we headed out from Tata ramp at 5.30am out to our drop off spot at BS1A, on the way we dropped a couple of Crayfish pots off to soak for tomorrow. We arrived at BS1A only to find a light sea breeze already up, we did a number of drifts in 210 metres to catch nothing, just a couple of small scarifies which we kept in the live tank for bait, after a couple of hours we headed across to another spot about 4 Ks away but the wind had picked up a bit to much for drifting. We then headed into Penguins for a snapper stray line to test the area, well we found out that there were no snapper there, after using 10 litres of berlie and all we got were barracuda's and sharks. At 3 pm we pulled the pick and headed home, easy cleaning no fish to fillet.

08.10.10 Day off from work

We have just had a perfect week of weather, it started Monday - no wind and no swell and by Thursday it was driving me nuts. The weekend forecast was for gale force winds Saturday....GREAT. So I took a managers day off Friday as it was the last day of the school holidays. Johnstone and I decided to take our boys, Ethan and Jordan out fishing, my boy Jordan hasn't had the best of times out fishing with me due to sea sickness but we dosed him up last night with sealegs and hoped he would be ok. We left the Tata ramp at 7am and headed to TR1A 37 kms out to sea, the sea was not bad but a light northerly was just roughing it up a bit. On our first drop Johnstone managed a good hook up and wound up a Hapuka (Grouper) around 18 kgs, our next couple of drifts Ethan managed to wind up a couple of sharks, on our fourth drift Jordan managed to hook up a 10 kg Hapuka, 2 fish and the bin was full. The wind had started to freshen and then suddenly died away so we thought we would have a bit of an explore around the area. We went out a further 5 kms and a further 5 kms to the north, but there was little to be seen. Our rock we have been fishing seems to be the only one holding fish. Around lunch time we headed to Kells to give the kids a Tarakihi fish before heading home. Jordan was fine and didn't feel sick at all.

02.10.2010 A hard day at the office

It was a toss up whether to fish the surfcasting comp or to go deep sea, the forecast was calm, little swell and light winds so deep sea won. Murray and I headed out to TR1A at 6am from Tata ramp. We arrived on our spot at 7am, 37km out to sea in 187 metres of water. The sea was good no wind, we soon had baits down, our first drift yielded a nice trumpeter around 4 kilos, we repositioned and Murray had a Hapuka around 10 kgs on board, while I battled a 4 foot shark again. Over the next hour we managed another 2 trumpeter. By 12 the sea breeze had gotten up from the south so we headed in shore to fill the bin with Tarakihi - but they weren't playing the game. From the reports on the radio everyone was struggling to catch anything, we were happy with our 5 fish least they were good sized and would provide plenty of food. We heard from a mate fishing in the comp that only 5 fish were caught so we made the right choice.