Xmas break

I have 4 days off for Christmas, the weather reports are good for the first 3 days, so with my son Matt home for the break we are looking forward to some father and son bonding. Friday night we set 3 crayfish (like a lobster but with no claws) pots after work in front of our camp site at Pouawa beach (in Gisborne we have a number of beaches we can freedom camp on for a small fee, our caravan is only a few metres from the sand and sea).
Xmas day Matt and I get up at 4am and head out and pull the pots to find 6 legal crayfish for Christmas lunch, the sea is calm so we head out to BS1A 30km's out for a quick drift fish. the sea is a bit sloppy that far out and the fish weren't playing the game but we managed a nice Bluenose for the table, the sea inside was flat calm, we managed to find a work up with gannets and dolphins so we dusted off the lures and managed a couple of fat Kawhai (also known as sea trout). We managed to be back home and have the boat cleaned all before lunch.
Boxing day, Murray joined us and we headed out again and checked the pots, no legal size crays but lots of small ones, we were going to head out deep but hear on the radio that the seabreeze was already up so we stayed inside for a Tarakihi fish, but yet again we were unable to find let alone catch a fish, we met up with 5 other boats all with the same story...no fish. Last night at 1am we had a good earthquake (4.9) maybe that had some bearing for the lack of fish, anyway we went home with our tails between our legs.
Monday 27.12.10. We are up early again and head out to check our pots again, this time we have only 2 legal crays but they are beauties, we head out wide again to our favourite spot TR1A the sea is calm with a very light seabeeze. We spend the next 4 hours drift fishing and catching 3 nice Hapuka and one Trumpeter (the biggest Hapuka was 14kg's). We came home to our hot dry northwester winds that sent our temperature soaring into the high 30's - summer is finally here ya.
Tuesday the winds have turned gale force from the northwest, so it is a day chilling out at the camp site.
Have a Happy New Year everyone.

15.12.2010 Here we go again

Our run of bad weather continues, with persistent easterlies now forecast until Christmas. The only redeeming feature is that the water temp is rising, up to 18 degrees (C) and the first Tuna were caught in the Carpet court contest (7 and 9 kg Albacore). So with any luck the easterlies will push warm water down from the tropics and we will have a good game season, already reading reports from Cape Runaway, that say the commercial fleet are catching Yellow Fin and Big eye tuna's, so we are hoping they will head on down here.
With my son Matt coming home for Xmas I hope the weather will clear so we can take Gazebo out.
Merry Christmas to all those reading my blog, cheers and have a good one.

04.12.10 Carpet Court 34 hour contest

Saturday; The contest was postponed from last weekend thanks to our weekend destroying southerlies that have been turning up most weekends of late, even this weekend isn't looking the best with light easterlies forecast (winds from the east fish lest - or so it goes).Up again at 4am, pick up Murray and on our way out to sea by 5am. The wind is light with a half metre swell from 2 directions, we head out to TH1A (40km's out), we arrive to find conditions a little sloppy but fish able in 180 metres of water. Tzar followed us out and scored first with a teen pulling up a nice puka (groper) of 28kg's which ended up winning the Hapuka section, I had a puka of 8.5kgs on board soon after and Murray followed with a small 3kg Bass. THAT was it, sharks were the catch after that (all released) by 7.30 / 8am the wind had picked up making drifting near impossible, so we move to CO2A about 6 km away, where we could anchor up in 100 metres of water, there was plenty of fish sign - in fact 4 metres of them over the rock, but (and I have said before there is always a but) they were rubbish fish (we call them granddaddy hapuka - small orange things) they came up 2 at a time and released, after an hour of that we pulled the pick and moved to TM1A 14kms inshore, yet again lots of sign, again granddaddies, we kept dragging the anchor and sliding off the rock. It was about then when I snapped my Shimano Raider 2 rod in half - short version ..hooked rock ...small tug on rod ...snapped rod...totally f%*ked off. Time to move again. Time to do what I do best - strayline for snapper, 6km later and a bucket of berlie even later not even a bite, so 3pm - time for home.
To make a bad day worse while cleaning the boat I was re bending the anchor arms and I slipped and put my back out.
Sunday; After raiding the wife's medicine bag for pain killers at 4am, on the water by 5am, the wind was already blowing 15 plus knots and the swell had increased to a metre and a half we went to a good snapper spot on Aerial reef, we would have been better off parking in our washing machine, it was ugly, after half an hour we had straightened the anchor again. So we pulled the pick and went for a look at South rocks, we went over 8 of our best marks and not a fish on the finder, where have they all gone??? lots of rumours on shore about a gill netter setting a 1 km nets over the rocks and a out of town trawler running chains over the rocks as well as a long liner setting 40kms of line with 4ooo hooks, fact or fiction who knows. by 9am we had had enough and went home. It must be bad, never have I given up in an contest before like this - 160km's traveled for 2 fish?.
Monday was a brilliant summers day - hot and calm, Tuesday back to southerlies cold and trying to rain.
Talking to others who were out, we were not alone - most struggled to catch anything as well.