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.

19.09.10 surfcasting Midway Beach

On Sunday the northwest wind was forecast to be at gale strength and was so I left Gazebo at home and took my surfcaster down to midway beach for a look. I have a Kawahi surfcasting contest on the 2nd of October and I thought I would see what the fishing was like, the sea was flat and the wind was strong offshore so casting was easy as, but the water was very dirty from the rain we had last week coming down the big river. Fishing was slow with crabs taking the bait but I managed one small red cod and a conger eel, not much to show for 3 hours fishing but it was the first red cod I have caught at that beach.

18.09.10 Prize giving

The Gisborne Tatapouri sports fishing clubs annual prize giving was held last night and Gazebo and I won the Ray Webb Trophy for the Bottom fish fisherperson of the year for the second year running and the Blue Spray cup for the Heaviest Kingfish on non-game gear for my 25.75kg Kingfish. Hopefully we will do ok this year when the competition season starts 30.10.10.

12.09.10 Retrieving Gazebo at Tata ramp

Wok & Roll and Tzer waiting for their turn for the tractor
Gazebo being loaded on her trailer, a very low tide

Not the smoothest of ramps

Most of these rocks are just covered by water at low tide

We launch at high tide here

Tzer a 6.7 Surtees Gamefisher and Gazebo a 6.1 Surtees barcrusher
inside the reef in the channel waiting for the clubs tractor.

Everyone helps each other with the launching and retrieval of boats

12.09.10 Spring has sprung

Triple hook up of Hapuka (40kgs of fish)

The weekends forecast was good - darn good. Murray and I left at 6.30 and launched at Tata ramp. The sea was calm with a small swell, we were going to go to penguins for a snapper fish but the conditions were so good we kept on going to TR1A. A spot we had gone to before without much success. TR1A is about 35km out to sea, when we arrived there was a charter boat already on the spot. The rock had 6 metres of fish on it. Our first drift yielded a nice trumpeter, soon another one joined it in the bin. the charter boat was pulling them in one after the another, being a large commercial cray boat it was able to sit on top of the rock making it hard for us to drift over the hot spot. We had to drift along the sides of the reef, Murray hooked on to something large - it took him ages to wind it up from the bottom a 180 metres down, near the surface it looked like a large stingray then 3 Hapuka (Groper) broke the surface - 3 hooks = 3 puka (16, 13 and 11kg, 40 kg in all). We were jumping for joy as we had seen it on TV but never experience a triple hook up before, now our fish bin was full and we had to use a sack for 2 of them. We did one last drift and I hooked the bottom but I could feel fish biting and then one got hooked, mean while we were drifting away while I was letting out more line and trying to do everything I know to unsnag me. It took Murray an age to pull his gear in so he could start the boat and reverse back to the spot, the sinker finally broke off and I was able to wind my gear in to find I had caught 2 large Trumpeter, now the bin was full with 5 fish and 2 more overflowing into our sack, not being greedy it was time to head home. We manged to feed just about everyone we know so there wasn't anything wasted. Sunday was even better conditions but with the fridge full we decided to save money and not go out, hopefully the next weekend will be good.