TSFC Ladies Day 27.03.10

Deb with her winning 5.90kg Snapper

The girls haul

The bin is full

Trish waiting for the big one

Deb in the I'm ready position

The Ladies competition was postponed twice due to bad weather. So finally we have a green light, we are down one of the team due to work commitments (Lianne) so we get up at 5.30am so we can make the 15 minute trip to the ramp, we arrive at 6.40am, Girls just don't get up and go (have coffee in bed, hair, lippy, go to toilet, get dressed, make lunch [I made mine the night before] go to toilet, put out washing, go to toilet). We head off to the spot where I caught last weeks winning snapper, the sea is a little lumpy from yesterdays sea breeze and the moans from the girls have already started - like "can't we fish a couple of metres from the shore where it is calm" (we are heading out 16km's)
I anchor up and set the berley sack to ever increasing moaning, after a 15 minute soak we have our first hit and it's Deb first up, It's a beaut I have to hold on to the back of her gimble belt and the rod while she reels it in and it is a 5.95kg snapper, as we bin the snapper the second rod is hit and Trish lands a pan size snapper, soon it is all on, over the next couple of hours we bin 9 snapper and release a couple, Trish lands a nice 3.76kg snapper, strange how the moaning has been replaced by shreiks of delight. By lunch the current and wind is opposite to each other and is no good for straylining, we pull the pick and head over to South rocks to catch some Tarakihi and to let the girls fish in deep water (45metres), They bin 12 Tarakihi's. The wind has disappeared and the sea is smooth as, I suggest shall we head back Trish said " God yes I'm buggered" we have a nice ride back and the girls are all smiles, Deb manages to win the snapper section and Trish was just beaten for 3rd place.

Hunting & Fishing 2 day contest

Perfect day - looking for skippies
Gisborne's east coast 16km away

25.30kg Kingfish

Day one's catch

Day one;

Murray and I leave the Tata ramp at 6.30am there is a small half metre swell and little wind, we head out to our spot BS1A to look for Hapuka, it is 32 km's to the spot and there is already a light sea breeze, we set up our first drift in 225 metres of water and Murray catches a 3 - 4 kg Bluenose, it takes another 3 hours for us to realise there isn't much down there as we catch nothing else, the only other boat out here is Men at Work (the boat I was on in the Tuna Hunt). We move off to the South Rocks towing lures, we get to the South Rocks and nothing has changed, still one fish in the bin, we check out a few of our spots and there isn't much sign, we find one rock that looks ok and we drop the anchor, one Tarakihi and a lot of rubbish fish returned. We pull anchor and head to Ariel reef and drop the anchor in the middle of the shallows and put out a sack of berlie, it takes half an hour to catch our first snapper, we bin 6 nice size snapper, 2 good Trevally and like all good fishing stories loose a couple of good fish, with fishing time nearly up, I see a large fish lunge at my bait as I was reeling the bait in to change it. What we thought first up was a large Marco Shark turns into a large Kingfish, it strikes and takes off, taking half of my line in its first run, its next two runs takes me down to the last 10 metres of line, I screw the tension down and start trying to turn the fish, slowly metre by metre I get the fish to turn and head to the boat. It takes another couple of smaller runs before it tires and we get it to the boat and Murray sinks the gaff into it, What a beaut. We check the time and we have 30 minutes to get the fish to the weigh station, with the boat running at 34 kph in a choppy sea it will take us 27 minutes to cover the 16 km's. After what seems like a power boat race we make it with 4 minutes to spare and weigh the Kingfish in at 25.63kg.

Day two;

We change plans and make the day a stay lining day for snapper, I have the feeling there is a big one in the area we were in yesterday. The biggest snapper weighed in so far was only just over 3kg's and one of ours is in third place at 1.99kg. We arrive at the Ariel Reef to find the sea is flat calm (at last a great day), we put a sack of berlie in the water, after half an hour of soaking Murray catches our first snapper around the 2kg mark, he soon has 4 more in the bin before I catch my first one, my second one is a good strike and I get a good fish to the boat where Murray gaff's it and we have a 7 plus kg snapper in the bin, over the next 3 hours the fishing slows and we have 10 snapper on board and the sea is still perfect. We pull the anchor and start to head to the Penguin reef about 6km away, the area seems alive with Skipjack tuna so out go the lures. With the sea so flat it is really hard to catch any, I manage to boat one and lose 2, we cruise round for a while but nothing will get the skippies to take our lures, we head home and weigh our snapper in at 7.60kg's.

At prize giving we take out first in the Snapper and Kingfish classes.

A lesson I still haven't learnt - weigh all your fish, with hardly any tuna caught the skippy would have taken 2nd place and would have gone close to taking first in the tuna class.

Finally the Snapper have arrived back at their usual haunts, where they have been no one knows.

Gisborne Surf Fishing Competition

We had the ladies boat competition set for yesterday, with the weather forecast and a large SW swell and winds the ladies comp is postponed till the 27th, and we have the Discount fishing Gisborne surf fishing comp set for today.
The surf casting comp is still on, we get down to the beach to the spot I've been checking out at 6.30am and the swell is a solid metre, to big for us to wade out and cast over the last wave so we head up to the western end of the beach where the swell is smaller to our reserve spot, we are fishing high tide going out, Murray and I cast out at 8.ooam (start time) and wait, we get a few small bites resulting in our baits being taken a good sign. Around 10.00am I'm casting one of my two rods and my other one has a large bite, I have to rush in from the sea to grab the rod and play in a 1.63kg Kahawai - good least one fish to weigh in. About an hour later Murray pulls in a 32cm snapper the target spieces, even better. Half hour later I pull in a 3.6kg Dogfish (shark), for the rest of the contest I catch a few small trevally and Kahawai's which are under sized and are released, The day is fine and calm and I'm a bit sun burnt, we go to the prize giving an find out there is over 140 rods fishing and only 6 fish weighted in, Murray manages 2nd place with his snapper, my Kahawai ends up in 2nd place and the shark is in 1st place, not a bad days work at the office for team Gazebo.

Surfcasting 27.02.10

Young Nicks Head to the west
Port of Gisborne to the east

least the water is warm

You have to get wet to catch snapper

After the other night I thought I would try the same spot again but in the middle of the day to see if the snapper were still there in full sun light. I arrived at 10.30am, first cast resulted in a 32cm snapper "great", over the next hour I caught 2 small trevellies 3 small Kahawai and a herring (all released), it shows the area is holding a good number of bait fish, hopefully it yield snapper on the contest next weekend

Surfcasting 23.02.2010

With a couple of surf casting contests coming up in the next few weeks I thought i better dust off the rods and get some practice in. After tea I head down to midway beach just as the sun is starting to set, I check out a spot we fished last year that had a good Pipi (type of shell fish that lives in the sand in the surf zone) bed, the spot looks real good even had a group of birds sitting on the sea behind the waves, I cast out 7 baits until it gets to dark - catching 3 snapper (26,29,32cm) and one Kahawai (small) all were released, good shows the area has good potential for the contest.

Marlin and Tuna hunt 20.02.10

On the way home

it's rougher than it looks

several hours later "not so keen"

Dean first shift "keen as"

With Murray not available I thought I would give this contest a miss as we totally suck at catching Marlin and big Tuna, but I was offered a place on a friends boat.

Day one, we didn't go out as we all had to work

Day two, was cancelled due to a southerly front which bought rain, wind and a swell.

Day three, we gathered at the ramp at 5am and headed out in the dark , we only got 50 meters when the motor stalled, we found we had a fertilizer sack rapped around the prop so spent the next half hour cutting the sack away(thanks to those who throw rubbish in the sea). Finally we were off in the 8.5 meter White Pointer "Men At Work" the sea was still sloppy from yesterdays weather, we headed to the dog leg with the boat ploughing though the seas with ease. At Westpac we set our lures and started to troll, going through the dog leg we had a double strike and landed 1 out 2 Albacore tuna around the 13kg mark each. We then headed out to the Turahine rise, Rex our skipper set the auto pilot and settle in the cabin and went to sleep, we trolled for 3 hours I thought something was wrong, worked out where we were and we had gone passed the rise by 2 hours so we turned around and headed back to the rise and spent the next 5 hours trolling the rise we picked up another double strike of albacore about the same weight, the boat ahead of us "In the Red" caught and landed a 70kg Big Eye Tuna. By lunch time the sea breeze was in full mode 25 knots and the sea was getting ugly but the White Pointer was handling the conditions alright, even the crew where good, mid afternoon we started the long haul back, around Nolders we had another double strike and landed another 2 Albacore of around the same weight. We got back to the ramp at 7pm and weighed in our heaviest fish at 13.36kg.

Day four, again we headed out just after 5 am the sea conditions looked a lot better than yesterday, again we went to Westpac and set our lures, this time we headed north after an hour we had a strike which was much larger than before it turned out to be a Marco shark around 50kgs, not what we wanted an hour later another strike this time Dean landed a 20.38kg Albacore which ended up being the 3rd heaviest albacore for the tournament. Three hours later Rex landed a 8kg Albacore and it was time for lines out. That was the contest over for another year.

I was really impressed by the fuel consumption of the diesel engine, on the troll around 4 litres an hour and at 18 knots around 18 litres - puts petrol engines to shame as it would cost twice as much or more for Gazebo's 4 stroke to cover the same distance in those conditions.

14.02.10

New day better forecast I get up at 5, look outside see large frontal clouds and hear the wind in the trees - text Murray go back to bed, 8.00am wake up fine calm day - Bugger - we are on the water by 9ish. the sea is flat and calm we head to BS1A for a few drifts, First drop a small bass and a Gemfish, soon another Gemfish, then it went quiet, I managed to pull up a Terakihi on a size 16 circle hook from 225 meters, much easier to catch them in 35 meters. the day was perfect with light winds all day, the sea temp was 22.3 but we couldn't find any bird activity, the first marlin (117kg stripe) for the season was caught at Roman nose so the action should start hotting up over the next few weeks.