20/26.11.11 The discount fishing deep water contest

Wow where do I start. If you have been reading my earlier blogs you will see that we have been fishing the deep really well. Not so this contest, we travelled over 200 Kms and caught nothing - I mean not a fish did we bring home, this must have been our worse ever 2 days fishing.

The fist days fishing was postponed until the following Saturday due to a southerly front that turned a flat calm Fridays sea to 4 metre storm tossed mess.

Sunday - the sea had calmed down to around 1.5 metres and the wind had gone, so the contest was on. We travelled the fist day 120 kms visiting nearly every deep rocks we know, fishing from 180 metres deep to 350 metres - and nothing. At lest we were not alone, the majority of the fleet had the same story, except for 2 boats skippered by ex commercial long liners who went out to their old grounds (out of our range).
We have been having a few deep sea earthquakes of late and maybe that has upset the fish, who knows what goes on down there.

The following Saturday the conditions were good, but a southerly was forecast to arrive around lunchtime. Again no fish and again we weren't alone, except for the 2 ex-commercial fishermen. But the southerly turned up at 8.30am and with the sea turning to custard the contest was called off and all boats asked to return home on safety grounds. So for all the practise we had done we sucked big time.

Fish species that we catch in the sea off Gisborne

Here are some of the fish species we target in the waters off Gisborne New Zealand. Our fishery is in good shape after years of over fishing, with the introduction of quota management for the commercial fishing fleet, it has allowed most of the species recover, still away to go yet - but they are on the right track.

Skipjack Tuna.

Up to 8kg. Seasonal January to June.

Good eating, better bait.

Snapper.

Up to 17kg. My favourite fish to catch.

Very good eating

Trumpeter.

Up to 25kg. From 50 metres to deep.

My favourite fish to eat

Terakihi.

Up to 6kg. 25 metres plus, main commercial catch off Gisborne.

Very good eating

Red Snapper.

Up to 10 kg. 50 metres plus.

Good eating

Kingfish.

Up to 45kg. All depths, a very good fighter, pound for pound better than a Marlin.

Good eating.

Gurnard.

Up to 2kg, Caught usually in the shallow sandy areas.

Good eating.

Gemfish.
Up to 10kg. Caught in deep water 150 metres plus.
Very good smoked


Bluenose.

Up to 40kg. Caught in the deep 200 metres plus.

Very good eating.



Hapuka.

Up to 50 kg. Use to be caught in all depths, now in deeper water 100 metres plus

Very good eating.



Bass.

Up to 100 kg. Caught in the deep, 200 metres plus

Very good eating

29/30.11.2011 The Hunting & fishing Inshore Contest

Saturdays forecast wasn't that good, so with that in mind and a light Southerly (on shore wind) Friday we did a bit of a late start. We hit the ramp at 7am to find calm conditions. We headed to Aerial Reef 20km's out from the ramp, to the spot we caught our Snapper last year. We berlied for a couple of hours and nothing "a big fat zero", we pulled the pick and headed another 6km's out to South Rocks to our spot we have been fishing lately. We dropped the pick and put the berlie bag in and I cast my first bait, and it hadn't even got to the bottom and a big hit. I played the fish in thinking a double hook up of Barracuda and got a shock to see a nice big fat snapper. After another hour we were getting snaked (Barracuda's) on every bait. Managed to catch a nice big one and it went in the bin as they were in the contest. Lunch time found the sea dead glassy - not a breath of wind, so we decided to take a lunch break from "inshore fishing" and head out to the Hapuka fields. Still glassy we dropped our baits and sat on 200 metres of water, I caught my usual shark and Murray a double hook up - Hapuka and a Bass. My next drop was a small Bluenose and Murray a shark (his turn). With lunch over we headed back in to Penguins and back to snapper fishing, by mid afternoon the sea breeze had arrived and with nothing else happening we headed in.
Sunday the weather forecast was better, but the sea breeze was already up at 7am, we headed back to south rocks only to find every barracuda in the world had turned up. By 10am the sea breeze was howling and the snakes were destroying baits and gear, by 11am I had enough and pulled the pin and headed home.
The snapper 7.340kg won first place in the snapper section and the barracuda 5.420kg also won first place in the barracuda section.