The 21st Annual Cricket Fishing Trip

As I wrote in my last blog the heavy rain warning was correct, Monday and Tuesday it blew and it poured, the road north has been cut by a massive slip for the last 2 weeks and the road south was cut by flooding and the railway line South (the only one) was washed out so badly it may never open again....But the road East (to Cape Runaway) was open and in good condition for the first time in many years (normally heaps of road works etc).
We left Wednesday morning and reached the house we rent at lunch time, the owners told us that they hadn't had much rain, so with that we unloaded the 4x4's and had a quick recon to see if the conditions were OK and they were, so by 2pm we had the small boats in the water and we were soon on Cricket Island with baits in the water. Fishing was slow with only 2 snapper caught - both to Johnstone with the heaviest at 2.3kg.
That night the wind picked up and it blew and the rain poured and about midnight it changed direction and came back at us. The morning bought calm conditions and the rain had gone - well almost. We had a late breakfast and at 10am some of the boys cracked a cold one or two and decided it was going to be a lay day. Not being a big drinker, 4 of us packed our gear and went for a drive to find somewhere to fish and we found a nice rock in a sheltered bay and spent the afternoon enjoying the sun as there wasn't much happening on the fish front.
Friday dawn was clear and calm so we packed the boats and headed to Lottin to fish our rock, the sea was a bit swelly and still a little choppy but we made it ok to our spot and were able to fish a sheltered area that produced a lot of pan sized snapper and the odd shark, I managed to catch a 4.3kg snapper that put me in the lead for the Green Jacket, that didn't last long as 4 of the team had gone over the hills on 4x4 bikes and Pooh managed a 16.8kg Kingfish to take the lead. That evening we bought out the clay bird launcher we had hired and a couple of shot guns and had a spot of target practise.
Saturday dawned calm again and we loaded the boats and headed to the Cape Rocks, but sadly the surge was big, making it to dangerous to get ashore so we headed to Maoris. 2 of the boats went to one rock and Johnstone and I felt it was a bit crowded so we headed to another spot further round, it proved to be a good spot with a steady stream of nice sized snapper coming in all day (all but 5 were released). We put out a number of live baits under balloons only to have them all taken by sharks, but it was a very nice day in the sun on the rocks. We got back to the house to find that Pooh had caught another Kingfish 17.6kg and was this years fishing champion taking the Green Jacket. Again we had another round of target shooting blasting off 500 rounds over the 2 days (the way a number of the boys shot the ducks have nothing to worry about).

 Gnome takes aim

                                                              Magnet reloading

                                                                   Magnet takes aim.

The next day was pack up time and to head back to town and reality.

19.03.12 The worse summer ever

Not much to write about, the crappy weather continues, this would have to be the worse summer in the last 40 years that I can remember. The pastoral farmers are happy, they have plenty of feed and water, the cropping and grape farmers not so - too wet and not enough sun. The rest of us are just pissed off big time, our normal hot dry summer has turned into a wet - humid - cloudy one. The Tuna/Marlin season looks like it has lasted a whole 5 days (a marlin was hooked and lost in the weekend) with the warm water now out to sea it means those wanting to catch a Marlin will have to burn a lot of fuel to get there, it may come back in but it will take a weather/current change to allow it. Our cricket team are about to go up to Lottin Point for our annual fishing trip for 5 days and a heavy rain warning has just gone out for the region = Great!! (More about that on my return)

16-19.02.12 Eastland Port Marlin/Tuna hunt

The Eastland Port Marlin/Tuna Hunt.

Johnstone, Gnome and myself asked Rex if he was going in the Marlin hunt again this year, if he was does he want a crew as we crewed for him last year. Rex Briant replied that he was going to compete in the world series Jet Sprint champs that was being held in New Zealand this year, as a former world champion he thought it was a opportunity to good to miss. So Rex said "take my boat and do well". Rex owns White Pointer Boats a Boat building business here in Gisborne, so with great generosity gave me White pointer to take out, White Pointer is a Sportsman 840 pro, the boat we fished off last year with Gnome coming second in the Marlin section with a 117kg Stripe Marlin.
The first day the sea was still sloppy from a southerly that came through the day before and was forecasted to die out late afternoon. We left the dock at 5.30am and headed to the area where they caught the short billed spear fish last year.
We chugged around most of the day with nothing to show, Gnome was up the front asleep and Johnstone and I had just reset the lures, they just didn't look right so we changed them all and reset the pattern, I said to Johnstone they look great and feel fishy, 20 minutes later the 80 wide screamed, we scrambled to pull the other rods in, the reel went silent, I said to Johnstone "have we dropped it". "No" he said "its still there" I got Johnstone (his turn) and the rod into the Game chair just in time for a big run, we looked out and saw a lot of slashing and the sickle shape of it's tail, "fuck it's a marlin" and with that it screamed off and pulled half the 37kg nylon off the reel. By now Gnome had woken and was backing the boat. It took Johnstone 45 minutes to get the marlin along side the boat so I could sink the flying gaff into it, we dropped the door down into the sea and the marlin flopped its bill into the boat allowing us the pull it into the boat in one easy pull. After 10 minutes of back slapping we checked the marlin out and to our surprise it was a Blue or a black. As we had never seen one before we weren't sure.

228.650kg Blue Marlin

We decided to head back to port and weight the Marlin in before it started to lose too much weight as there was a couple of stripe marlin's on the way in also.

Unloading White Pointer of her Precious cargo

at the Gisborne Tatapouri sports Fishing Club.

3 very happy snapper fishermen.

The next 2 days of the competition the sea was flat and calm, fishing was hard , all we managed to boat was 11 skip jack tuna and 3 albacore tuna, nothing worth weighing.

We had the lead and the last day the weather turned southerly again, but with the choppy seas a number of boats hooked up and a couple more stripe marlins were caught, but lucky for us no Blues, the nearest marlin to us was a stripe marlin at 126kg.

Johnstone won the contest and we shared the $10000.00 prize money 4 ways (a share for Rex)

If you are looking for a new boat that catches Marlin go to

http://www.whitepointerboats.co.nz/

For the full results go to the Gisborne Tatapouri Sports Fishing Clubs web site. http://www.gtsfc.co.nz/

10.02.12 Weather break

Half way through my holidays and a break in the weather. Murray who is also on holiday are able to head out. The easterlies and southerlies that have plagued us this summer roll back to give us a stunning day out. With a lazy 1 metre swell and no wind all day we head out from the Gisborne harbour and find the deep blue coloured water 15kms out and set our lures and troll out to sea. With the Tuna and Marlin hunt on next week it was good to have a look around, but sadly we found no sign of fish, though it was looking good - heaps of dolphins and birds everywhere but no workups to be seen. we found a area called the Roman nose in 120 metres of water and anchored up and caught 24 Terakihi, which was good because the area looks like it has allot of potential for the future as we don't have many marks down south.

04.02.12 Bowentown Nauti Girls comp.

On Thursday we did our usual 4 hour trip up to Bowentown in the Bay of Plenty for the Bowentown Sportsfishing clubs Nauti Girls competition. This year Deb and I drove up towing Gazebo and Liane came up Friday with the Kids, Trish unfortunately couldn't make it because of work commitments. Deb and I arrived Thursday evening to flat calm sea and harbour, no swell and no wind. the next morning we launched Gazebo and headed out to the entrance with the hope of going over to Mayor Island, but the line of white water over the bar and a freshening wind put paid to that, harbour fishing it was, again a case of "you should of been here yesterday" all we got were Stingrays and sharks and a couple of small Trevally.
The Nauti girls comp was much the same for us 4am start and a frustrating day of stingrays and sharks, but we were not alone. The day was good and the harbour flat and the girls enjoyed themselves - till next year.

27-29 January. Enterprise Nissan Bay Bonanza

27.01.2012 Day one; 4am start. Murray, Evan and myself are at the ramp and 2nd in line for the tractor, the wind is howling from the Northwest (offshore) and a southerly front is expected late afternoon. we are released and sent off at 5.30 and head out to southrocks in a choppy sea with 15 - 20 knot Northwest wind. We go the the area where we had success two weeks ago, we caught a few fish but nothing to write home about. By mid afternoon and a couple of moves later, the wind died away. Looking towards the south you could see the front building and getting closer, so we decided to call it quits and head home. We were driving up my drive when the rain and the wind hit, glad we came in when we did. I managed to weigh in a Kahawai at 2.620kg and we registered 6 fish in the most species category.

28.01.2012 Day Two: With the front passing in the night and the sea not having time to settle we decided to have a late start at 6.00am. We arrived at the ramp to find 6 or 7 boats already out in a lumpy sea with a light 8-10knot southwesterly blowing, we headed out to Aerial rocks for stray line in a favorite spot of ours. We arrived and the sea was crap, but we anchored and gave it our all. By 10am we had 2 small snapper in the bin and the sharks had returned, but the wind had dropped and the sea was calming down. We headed out to south rocks and the sea was getting better so we kept on going to Baistows, our Hapuku (grouper) grounds. Over the next 3 hours we managed 4 Hapuku, 3 Blue nose and 3 Gemfish. The sea now was perfect so we did a 17 km run to Thunder rock and managed only a trumpeter, and time to head home. Nothing we weighed in was heavy enough but the Kawahai I weighted in Friday was in first place and we managed to up our species tally to 11.

29.01.2012 Day 3; Back again to to ramp at 4am and first in line. we were released again at 5.30 and headed east in a northwest wind at 8 knots. We anchored at 12 fathom rocks about 30km away and set up a berlie trail. We managed a couple of snapper again and half Kahawai's and Kingfish, thanks to a couple of small Marco's that kept hanging around. By 10am the sea had glassed off , no wind so we headed out to Tinman to fish an area we hadn't been to for awhile. we managed 3 Red snapper and a Kingfish, but time was running out and it was a early finish so we started to head home towing some plastic lures, hoping for a Albacore tuna or Skippy tuna to add to our tally. We came across a small work up and managed to get 6 nice Albie's but no Skippie's and then we ran out of time. We had a pleasant run home in a flat glassy sea. We managed to get our tally up to 17 different species, only to find when we got home we had one more that I (yes me) had forgotten to weigh in that would have given us joint 1st place and a half share of $1000.00 for most species. My Kahawai managed to stay on the board and got 3rd place for a $100. Later at prize giving my name was pulled out of the barrel with 39 others for a chance at winning a Holden Barina car, Last man standing gets the car, I manged to last to the last 7 and then my day was done, managed to get a bottle of Rum as a consolation.
Our Species list: Snapper, Trevally, Red Cod, Kahawai, Tarakihi, Barracouta, / Hapuku, Bluenose, Gemfish, Trumpeter, Banded Wrasse / Blue Cod, Red Snapper, Conger Eel, KingFish, Albacore tuna, Sea Perch. and a blue sweep that I forgot.

14-15.01.12 Liquorland family contest

Black Friday 13th January I took the day off to help Deb move our camp site back home, with the hope of getting out for a fish, as the Liquorland contest had been going all week. But as usual the weather gods frowned on me. The wind picked up from the Northwest strong to gale force, so no fishing, just packing up the camp site. The northwest wind in Gisborne is our hot dry wind and our temperature started to rise, finally summer is here and we picked the hottest day of summer to pack up. The contest is a 7 day one, with those lucky enough to be on holiday being able to go out and fish calm weather during the week while the workers had to wait until the weekend.
14.01.12 day 1 for us - The wind had dropped from Friday but was still expected to be strong, but with the temp expected to get into the low 30's I thought the seabreeze might hold the northwesterly back and we might get a nice day. We left the ramp and headed out to PR1A a under water reef system 16 km off shore. We found a area a fish on the sounder and anchored, put out the berlie and threw out our strayline baits and we were soon into a couple of snapper the heaviest at 2.7kg, after an hour things quietened down with the only highlight being a Marco shark taking our livebait as soon as we put it in the water (the reason for it being quiet) and playing it to the boat so we could release it. I managed 3 more pannies on a ledger rig and we decided to try somewhere else. The new spot turned out to be a Marco shark hang out spot with all baits being taken and bitten off. We spent the rest of the day looking around and trying different things to no avail, at least my predictions were right
15.01.12 - We headed out again into a building northwesterly, this time we went to SR1A another under water reef system 26km's out to sea. we found another school of fish in a shallow area and wiped a couple of strayline baits into them and bang a nice 2 kilo snapper, another bait and bang another nice 4 kilo snapper, Murray not to be out done whipped out a bait and again bang other nice snapper @ 6.74kg. I managed to catch a good Trevally @ 4.74kg. Then it went quiet, to stir up interest we put out the berlie bag *bad mistake* Marcos and blue sharks came to us, every bait was taken, we managed to play 3 Marcos and one Blue to the boat so we could release them, the rest just chewed us off. and with that our day was done.
Murray's snapper took out 1st place and my Trevally also took out 1st place.