Waihau Bay trip 02.03.16

It has been a long time since my last blog, you thank facebook for that, I went up to Waihau Bay on a mates boat chasing marlin and managed to get my first one, I will post a video breakdown of the trip ( there is one mistake the pod of beaked whales are in fact false killer whales, very rare to find let alone film. The last 12 months have been hard, snapper the fish I love to hunt have been very hard to find and yellow fin tuna which have been missing from New Zealand waters for the last 6 years with only 1 or 2 caught per year have returned, not in the massive schools of old but a least they'er here with a couple caught in our waters.

Over  days we tagged and released 1 striped marlin and dropped 2 blue marlins as well as catching 1 small MahiMahi

13/04/15 funny old summer

It's been a while since my last post, summer has been and gone, Autumn is coming to an end - sadly, The fishing has been hard with my favorite fish snapper very hard to find all summer, only now are there reports of fish being caught in their usual haunts, the star has been Hapuka (Grouper), with good catches all over the place ( not only in the deep but in the shallows up to 50 metres).
The contest season has been equally hard, I took Gazebo out in the Tuna hunt this year for the first time for only one fish a Albacore tuna 10kg that took out 15th place, sadly I had a large Big Eye tuna on for 15 minutes until the hook pulled, overall 10 marlin were tagged or landed and more were lost.
I went out on Tzer at the White pointer only contest at Waihau Bay, again I had a very large Blue marlin hooked in the 3rd hour of the contest until it also threw the hook, my year for dropping large fish ( Got to take some consolation that at least I hooked them),
In the 48 hour blue water contest I managed to win the open Hapuka section with an 11 kg fish off Tzer.
Easter I took Gazebo up to Bowentown (5 hour drive), we had a day trolling Mayor Island for no joy and the next day taking the girls out for a snapper fish. On Sunday we entered the harbour only contest and I managed to win the snapper section with a 2.8 kg fish and my son Jordan won the other section with a 600gm octopus,
This weekend I take Gazebo and the crew from Tzer up to the Surtees only contest in Whakatane (2.5 hour drive) and the following weekend is the boys cricket trip to Cape Runaway for snapper fishing off the rocks

cunning plan

Young nicks charity contest, well we had a cunning plan - to go up to the Cape Runaway and fish our favorite spots from Gazebo...... To be honest it was our second cunning plan as the first weekend the contest was postponed due to gale force winds and the cunning plan we had planned is so good we will use it next year therefore I can't divulge it. Any way we left Gisborne to travel to the cape, a 4 hour drive, an hour into the drive we go through the Waioeka gorge (60km's long). 10km's to go and boom a trailer tyre explodes, great - lucky I had a spare, to the next small town and a call to the Tyre repair shops after hour number and were on our way again minus $200. The Cape rocks are the northern boundary of the contest so for 3 days we fish the eastern side in ever worsening weather as a low drops down on us while on the western side of the rocks (out of bounds) the sea is glassy flat (check the area out on Goggle maps - Cape Runaway - New Zealand). The fishing is hard, very hard. I managed to catch 4 snapper with the heaviest at 3.7kg, a long way from 12kg we need to win the $10000. My 2 crew struggled to catch anything, Graham managed to catch a couple of Kahawai, one looked good so we thought we would weight it in, he also caught a couple of Blue cod these were filleted and given to to owner of the place we had rented, bad move as it turned out they would have placed in the contest and to make matters worse our Kahawai weighed 2.850kg and was the heaviest ($500) BUT the weigh master wrote down on the sheet 2.285 and good bye $500, that topped our weekend off, but it was a great time away apart from the fishing.

 Cape Runaway

 Cape Rocks

 Cape Rocks in the rain

 Cape Runaway

Sunrise, calm this side rough the other side

discount fishing comp

After 3 and a half months we finally reached the end of the contest, Our winter wasn't the best, with only a few good days for fishing, most of them during the week meaning most of the 50 boats entered failing to get out or getting only one or two days fishing. Gazebo was one of them. I managed to get 13 days fishing on Tzer. I don't get sea sick but most of the days I felt woozy, with one day dry reaching all morning while winding up fish from the deep, such was the conditions must of the time I wouldn't even consider taking Gazebo out. We fished mainly the deep up to 500 meters with electrics or in my case manual reels, We had mixed results from nothing to excellent catches. One of the new places we fished was the Hockey stick, which is a 3 hour steam from port up the coast to the back of the Tolaga Bay reef, 70km from port and 40 km offshore in depths ranging from 200 - 500 mtrs. We managed to get 13 fish on the prize list with 6 going to me.
Gemfish 2.595kg 2nd
Trumpeter 9.510kg 1st
Trumpeter 6.020kg 3rd
Blue Nose 6.655kg 2nd
John Dory 2.000kg 2nd
Electric reel Gemfish 5.200kg 1st

Being a sport fishing club the use of Electric fishing reels in competitions has been contentious so we came with the idea of having a separate competition within the main competition for only electric reels, which was well received by most, but there were a few that were very anti, but you can't please everyone. I now have a 2 week break before the Young Nicks Charity contest (raising money for child cancer) - more later.

30.06.14 another day on Tzer

Got the call from Craig that he had a one man charter and if I would like to make the numbers up, so with 1.5 milliseconds to think about it I said yes. The forecast wasn't that good to start with but was improving as the day went on and it proved right. The morning was sloppy with a meter plus swell running. We went to the same area as we had being fishing earlier, we managed to put the client on to a couple of Personal best Kingfish around 18kg and managed to fill the bins with Snapper, Terakihi, and a nice John Dory,

2kg John Dory

19.06.14 discount fishing winter comp

it's been awhile since my last post - sorry - time just seems to fly, the 3 month long Discount fishing comp started on the 1st of June and already there have been a few excellent fish caught, our sponsor Colin caught a 38kg Kingfish on a jig with his first drop which will be hard to beat. I have been going out on the White Pointer 8.5 sportsman Tzer and we have managed a few nice Kingfish.

 24kg Kingfish

 5 and 6kg Trumpeter

 27 and 28kg Kingfish

 27kg Kingfish

27kg Kingfish

The fishing has been good so far this winter when you can get out, the day above looks calm but we had just reached shelter, out wide it was 2 meters of swell with a fresh wind on it, making for a very sloppy sea but the results were worth it.

04.05.14 catching up

Well the summer has gone and we are well into autumn, the Tuna Hunt has been again we sucked, this year we crewed a new 9.5 meter White Pointer shaft driven boat for its new Lord Howe Islander owners. The weather was perfect but we failed to fire(every place we went to marlin were caught that day) overall 9 marlin were landed for the competition. Between February and Easter we went out a few of times and managed a fed but caught nothing special. Easter I took Gazebo up to Bowentown for Easter, it was good to get out and fish the Harbor again and catch snapper in 2 meters of water, means I may have learned to fish the harbor finally. We got outside the Bar and fished the 23 meter mark and again caught snapper and reasonable sized ones at that. On the way Home I stopped at Whakatane for the Surtee's boats only competition where I was joined by Craig and Doug. The sea was perfect and we heard the snapper were being caught at the 14 meter mark (depth) and true to word there was sign on the fish finder only at 14 meters and we had no problem catching snapper up to 4.4kg. On day 2 again we headed to the 14 meter mark and again we had no problem catching snapper but couldn't beat 4.4 kg. with an hour to go we headed to the shore and in 2 meters of water behind the small surf, Craig and Doug had a soft bait and Craig hooked a 11.6 kg Kingfish, we had to play it like a marlin as Craig only had 6lb line and after 20 minutes we landed it. The Kingfish took 1st place which was great.
Today we went out for a snapper fish in the shallows on Ariel reef, this time of year there should be heaps of snapper around but we struck out with a big fat zero - weird - where are they??. the day was so good zero wind and glassy conditions we decided to head out to Baistows on the 225 meter mark, we managed 1 nice Hapuka and 7 Bluenose which filled the bin. We headed home over a glassy sea - what a perfect day, very rare for us not to have any wind all day.

28/01/14 been a bit slack of late

Sorry I've been a bit slack with updating the blog, have been out a few times of late catching fish but nothing big, deep fishing has been rewarding with small puka (groper) and bass 2-10kg, one or two each time I've been out wide, inshore has been hard, snapper almost impossible to find out east or up north, with the Whareratas being the place, but the barracuda will make you pay. Sea temps has risen to 19.9c and Skip Jack Tuna and Albacore Tuna have arrived as well as Striped Marlin (2 caught last weekend). Gazebo is all go and decked out to chase marlin if the weather settles, it has been real good for the last 6 weeks but the first southerly for the year arrived Friday mucking up our summer, looks like it should clear tomorrow and the temps will rise again. The Bay Bonanza (our big contest) was run over the weekend, we sadly didn't make it on the board. We went out wide on the first day and caught one of every thing you can in the deep but nothing big. The second day we fished the shallows and the fish were just not biting, so at lunch we put the lures out and trolled for marlin with no luck. the 3rd day was cancelled due to the weather. Next contest is in 3 weeks it's the Tuna hunt so here's hoping.

20.10.13 finally we get out

It's been awhile but finally we get to go out, early start and we had to go through 10km's of fog to find clear skies and sadly the northerly was already up, so another 20k's of slop to our spot and 5 drops each we have our limit 10 bluenose and back to south rocks for some tarekihi, by now the wind was up and the sea was getting ugly, we managed 7 Tarekihi while being plagued by small red snapper (golden), enough was enough and the long slog home to port to find the bay flat and calm, what a contrast. We were able to stop and drift to filet our catch. Home and cleaned up by 3pm. Bluenose for tea

25.08.13 spring is near

Since the last blog I have been out 3 times. The first time was late July, we went out wide to look for Hapuka (grouper) and found none so on the way home we stopped at a spot we call Rope saw sign and dropped the anchor, we both caught a Tarekihi and then the snapper kicked in, 2 at a time at times, they were hungry, as soon as the sinker hit the bottom we hooked up with most fish in the 2 kg range, it took less than an hour to get the limit of 20 snapper.
The next time was in early August we headed out wide again to look for Hapuka and only found sharks, we stopped at Gables on the way home and were on to snapper straight away, we shifted on the anchor and were into Tarekihi sadly the tax collectors turned up (barracuda) and took toll on our gear, we ended up with 4 snapper and 24 tarekihi.
Yesterday we went out and went straight to rope saw sign and again dropped the anchor and again we were straight in to the snapper it took an hour to get our limit of 20, nothing big' all around a kilo. with the wind around 18 plus knots and a metre plus swell we pulled the pick and headed home to be all cleaned up by 2pm. The days are getting warmer with spring looking a month early "yay".

winter

Sorry not a lot happening, big sea and storms, just waiting for a break in the weather. We have a winter comp going for 3 months and the first month is nearly over and i haven't been out at all - not good, need my fix.

Queens birthday weekend

Its raining and blowing its gut's outside right now, in contrast Queens birthday weekend was breathless and flat seas, I on the other hand went (was dragged screaming) up to Bowentown to the batch and left the boat at home. I have never seen it so flat in the Bay of Plenty, on Saturday we managed to get Cliff to take us out in his runabout and cross the bar, we anchored in 13 metres of water and berlied and caught and kept 27 snapper and released another 20 odd, all in a couple of hours - $10 fishing. While back home off Gisborne the sea was flat and calm as well with good catches reported. Oh well can't win them all.

19.04.13 Cricket trip to Lottin/Cape Runaway

Doesn't time fly it only seems like last week that we were at lottin and here we are again another year on and our 22nd fishing trip is about to begin.
Day one. We load up and drive the 3 hour trip to Cape runaway where we stay, The weather in the last couple of days has turned to crap, after the best summer and Autumn in memory it is typical that this week is the drought breaker. We get to the house to see the paddock flooded and the river high and dirty. So it was unpack and knock a cap off a bottle or two.
Day Two. We awake to blue Sky's and a strong north westerly (not good), 4 of us take the 4x4 bikes over the hill (700 mtrs) to have a look and the sight was not good for the boats but the track was drying out fast and it was ok to take the 4x4 land cruiser over the hill and to fish the rocks at the back of Jim's farm. The fishing was ok with everyone except me catching snapper with Pooh getting the biggest at 5.18 kg. My day just got worse and worse. I cut my finger before I even had a bait out (my main casting finger) and it bleed like a stuck pig, then all I caught was a eel, to top it off the sole of my rock boots came off. I had to take a lot of shit that night, not that anyone cared about my cut finger on the rocks but when they saw it back at the house suddenly there was a scramble to find first aid kits.
Day Three. The wind had gone and the morning was still and perfect so took the boats to Lottin and headed to a rock island we like 6 km up the rocks. We spread out and got the berlie in the water, the fishing was slow but steady. I managed to catch a snapper early on to get rid of the boggy tag and did I mention my finger was still very sore. About midday I had a big hit and managed to land a good snapper which I put into a rock pool to keep it fresh. About a hour later Evan who was fishing with me and I decided to head to the gear pile for lunch, taking the snapper for weighing (as the weigh master the scales were in my pack) Blank yelled out to us to check out Gnomes fish, I opened the ammo box (old ex army plastic shell boxes great storage containers)  and saw a big snapper and thought this is going to be close. I weighted his snapper first 5.75kg and then mine 5.81 kg phew 6 gms in it, but I was in the lead. Heading home Evans boat had a disaster when he hit a submerged rock and smashed the drive shaft, luckily 20 metres from the trailer.
Day Four - The last day of the competition. With the boat out of action we had to go back to going over the hill in the 4x4, the day was perfect no wind or swell, which was sad as we could see the Cape rocks where we wanted to fish off were accessible, they are very hard to get on to. The fishing was slow with the odd good fish being caught around 3 kg, with the day ended no one was able to beat mine and finally the green jacket was mine for the next 12 months, we have been competing for the green jacket for the last 10 years and I have been coming 2nd for the last 5 years, now I can relax in future years now the monkey is off my back.

To top the weekend end off on the way home the heavens opened up again with flooding up the coast road to the cape and the wheel seared off Evans boat trailer, we were lucky that one of the boys brothers lived in a near by town and we were able to get a new set of studs and to be on our way after a couple of hours in the rain.

PS - my finger is better now

Ladies comp

After one postponement we finally got underway, this year Trish wasn't able to fish so it was just Deb and Lianne who crewed for me. The weather conditions were very good with little wind and little swell, we headed out to my spot at Arial reef where we had the berlie in and the stray lines out in no time. Our first fish in was a shark not a good sign but it turned out to be our only one, we soon had a snapper on board followed by another and another in fact we were catching and releasing a steady stream of pan sized (legal) snapper we kept a dozen 2 to 3 kg snapper and a 3.72kg which earned Deb 4th place and a prize. Lianne hooked a good sized Kingfish that won the fight and busted off when it dived to the bottom. The day turned out to be very good with both girls catching heaps with about 20 fish released and sore muscles the next morning.

very quiet at the moment

I went in the Young Nicks Charity contest with Evan and Sue as crew, we managed a few snapper stray lining, but nothing big enough to get us on the leader board. The last day Sue and I got into the skippies, boating 30 for the freezer.
Monday I took the day off from work and went out again for more skippies with Gnome for our cricket trip to the cape, as usual we only caught 8 as they seemed to have dispersed, small groups all over.
Easter was a toss up whether I took gazebo up to Bowentown or not, looking on the web, the forecast wasn't the best so I left her at home, as one would expect the weather was perfect and what was worse the snapper were biting with limit hauls for most. I manged to get out on the brother in laws small runabout in the harbour and we managed 20 snapper in 2 metres of water - It pays to watch fishing programs on TV as I got the clue how to catch snapper in the Harbour from the programme "Big Angry fish" which did a lot of its filming from Bowentown. Every place is different even though you are targeting the same species. Only 10 sleeps until our fishing trip to the cape, can't wait.

14-17th Feb Tuna Tournment

A bit late sorry.
As was last year I was on White Pointer with Johnstone, Gnome and Rex the owner. Sadly for us this will be our last trip on her as she has been sold and will be going to Broom in western Australia.

 Hot warm and glass

 Perfect

 A new add on to White Pointer (fish spotting seats on the roof)

 Work up of Kahawai (where I jigged my Kingfish)

 4 days of waiting

Mid afternoon 50 km's out to sea doesn't get any better

The weather was near perfect for the 4 days with Friday being the stand out with glassy conditions well into the afternoon. Our 4 days fishing was a bit of a distaster this year with us not following our plans and heading off in the wrong direction each day. Friday was our best day with 5 Albacore Tuna caught in the 7-9 kg range not enough for a prize and Saturday I managed to jig a Kingfish at 17.9kg (2kg short of a prize). We did manage 1 strike from a marlin, but he didn't hook up. A 251kg blue Marlin won the contest followed by a 102kg Big eye (tuna double in weight 204kg) both caught by lady anglers, the Big Eye looks like it will be a new New Zealand ladies 37kg record

25.01.13 Enterprise Holden Bay Bonanza Competion

Day one.... Canceled, Woke up a 4 am to hear the rain on the roof and the howl of the wind in the trees, 25 knot southerly and swell increasing to 1.5 meters. Back to bed try again tomorrow.

Day Two .... Not much better than yesterday, but the wind had dropped a bit, only 10-15 knots from the southeast. So the call was made to let the boats go, we head to the Wharerateas to hide under the cliffs, hoping to get some protection, but no the sea was yuk. We dropped anchor on the inside neddle's area to find only small Kahawai, so we then head out to the neddle's proper where 6 other boats are at anchor. We find good sign on the sounder and drop the anchor, berlie in the water and straylines deployed. Bang a hit and the trace is gone times 4 rods. Baracoutta  are at their worst, we hang in retiring trace after trace, the other boats are pulling in small snapper one after the other. Finally I get a bait to the bottom and after 15 minutes a hit and I wind in a 7.18kg snapper. After another 3 hours and dozens of traces later, we pull the pick and head over to another boat to find they haven't seen a coutta at all, we drop the pick near them and have problems hooking up to the bottom and manage to catch 3 Tarakihi and that was that for the day.

Day 3 .... Still southeast but 1-5 knots, we head out from the Tata ramp and head to Baistows, the conditions are sloppy but ok. We drop our gear in  210 metres of water and I hook up instantly, a 8 kg Gemfish and Evan brings up a smaller one. We move over slightly and again soon as we hit the bottom I hook up, this time a small Bass and Evan a  5 kg Bluenose (good size for  Baistows). over the rest of the morning we catch 5 Bass, 2 Hapuka  (we even release one small bass, one that seemed ok, normally they have blown up from the change in pressure) and 4 good Bluenose all around 5 kg. We follow our game plan and head over to south rocks where we come arcross a work up of Kahawai, we break out the jigs and I land a Kingfish around 10-12 kg's Evan is straight into a good sized Kingi, takes around 15 minutes to get it into the boat and its a beauty, I release mine and it swims off none the worst for its stay on the boat.
Evans Kingfish weights 27.68 kg and takes 1st place, My snapper takes 2nd place and one of my Bluenose takes 3rd at 5.8 kg, so we didn't do to bad after all.

Summer 12/13

Sorry its been awhile since my last post, things have changed in my life, Having been made redundant just before Christmas and starting my own company, finding clients and work have kept me busy. Still I have found time to go fishing, we took our caravan out to the beach again this year (here in Gisborne we can freedom camp on certain beaches) and this year not having to work over the holiday period I was able to enjoy the beach. We have had the best summer so far in years, hot and dry with little wind.
I was able to go to the Tokomaru Bay's (about 65 k's up the coast) 2 day deep water contest on White Pointer, as usual the wind turned on shore for the contest and dropped completely as the contest ended. The conditions 46 k's out to sea were not good on the first day with most of the fleet being sick at sometime (even seasoned commercial fishermen were crook). I surprised myself with a quick spit after untangling a couple of lines and was good for the rest of the time, we had 4 on the boat who were not good all of the time on the first day. We managed only a couple of Hapuka and 16 Bluenose over the 2 days. not a good return seeing we were in the eldorado of Hapuka, the people we stayed with caught over 30 Hapuka over the 2 days supplying most of the small township of Tokomaru Bay with fish .

The water off Gisborne is starting to warm up reaching 20.9 last weekend, so everyone is starting to talk Tuna/Marlin, but still no sign of them. The sea looks ready for them with heaps of bait fish around so they can't be far away. This weekend is the Enterprise Holden Bay Bonanza our big 3 day contest, as per normal the forecast is crap for the weekend - but we live in hope the weather men have got it wrong.

15.12.12 Evans Xmas Ham Competition

Evans Xmas Ham one day competition is new to the club with only hams for prizes. We left early from the ramp around 5.30 am and headed out to Aerial reef to look for feeding schools of Kahawai for bait, last weekend they were everywhere but as luck would have it none were seen, so we headed another 5 k's to South rocks  where we finally came across one. After 30 minutes we had 7 in the bin and the largest put aside for the comp. We headed out to Baistows for a Hapuka drift, the conditions were good with a light wind and little swell. Over the next 5 hours we managed to land a 13 kg Hapuka, 2 Bluenose and a couple of good sized Gemfish. We headed back to South rocks for a snapper fish in the shallows and managed a few small ones and later a couple of Terakihi.
At the prize giving Murray came first in the Hapuka, third in the Gemfish and I came 5th in the Kahawai section. We ended up with one whole ham and 2 half hams which will end up on our Xmas families tables.

I wish all my readers a Merry Xmas and a Happy New Year.

09.12.12 $5 dollar fishing.....yeah right

Summer has arrived well and truly, the temperature have warned up to the high 20's. Sundays forecast had a large high moving over us which should give us calm weather, we decided to fish Sunday and head out to what we call the supermarket.
The supermarket is a small group of rocks in 40 metre's of water, 2k's straight off the ramp where fish start to gather in December through to late February - easy and cheap fishing for us.
We had heard that some good catches have been made of late. So at 6 am I pick Murray up and we where soon dropping the pick over good sign. With in half an hour we where joined by another 5 boats, but we  never had a bite and looking at the other boats they to weren't having any luck either. Saturday morning we had a 5.4 earthquake so we put it down to that, as the sea looked real good we pulled the pick and headed out to baistows 29 k's out. We stopped at Arial reef to jig some bait from a large Kahawai work up we came across and them headed out , the sea was calm except for a increasing swell. we dropped our gear in 220 metre's and slowly drifted over the rocky areas, we managed a few Gemfish until Murray hooked up and manged to boat 2 nice Hapuka. I kept on catching Gemfish until finally I landed a Hapuka and a small Bluenose, which were soon joined by another 2 Bluenose, with our bin full we headed home after one more drop on a area of rocks new to us, after a big battle I got to the boat a large shark which was released and it was time to go. We got to the ramp to find the swell had increased and a half metre wave was running down the channel that made trailering the boat very interesting - we nearly lost it but all ended well. So a trip to the gas station on the way home and we were $90 poorer - so much for $5 fishing.