29.07.11 Mental Health day

After all the crap weather we have been having, this weekends looks like another wipe out, but Fridays forecast was really good so Muz and I both took a Mental health day off and headed out. We went to Baistows which is 30K's out, the sea was a little choppy and a 1.5 metre swell running but the wind was forecast to die off by lunch. We found a little sign over a couple of rocks 210 metres down and managed to catch our usual sharks and a few reef fish - nothing we were after, so time to move. After a quick 17 km run up the coast to thunder rock we found a lot of sign at 180 metres. Our first drop yielded a lot of good bites (felt like Trumpeter) with the wind now playing to plan and completely dropping away we let Gazebo drift off the rock and picked up our first Hapuka (Groper) we zoomed back to the rock and dropped our gear again, still good bites and a drift away and another Hapuka. Next time I rigged a second rod with smaller hooks and a minute later a Trumpeter (really good eating) went in the bin (I love it when a plan works) and another Hapuka at the end of the drift. We ended up with 5 Hapuka and a trumpeter, doesn't sound a lot, but enough fish to feed both our families, parents and friends, no need to over fish a spot, as they say the best way to keep fish fresh is in the sea. So in the end we both got our fishing fix and had a great day off from work.

21.07.2011 Winter is here

A rare sight in Gisborne, snow on the hills the day after it fell.
There hasn't been much action out at sea for a while now, every weekend since my last post has been terrible, with the odd fine day mid week. We have just had our first proper frost which is about 5 weeks later than normal and with that there was a great day for fishing but sadly mid week (should have taken the day off work). This weekend the forecast has a heavy rain warning for us...great. The skiers have had their prayers answered down south with a good dump of snow on the snow fields, so we up in the east coast of the North Island really haven't had it too bad so far. Hopefully we'll get a fine weekend soon so we can get out to sea.

11.06.11 Whale of a day

Whale Island in the background (Where the movie Whale Rider was filmed)

2 of the whales (Humpback whales)
Our golden weather continues, the forecast for the weekend is for northerlies dying out and calm sunny days. Saturday morning we out to BS1A our spot 30km out to sea for a Hapuka (groper) drift in 200 metres of water. The sea was a bit lumpy with a 10 Knot northerly we spent about 3 hours trying for a Hapuka at various rocks we know in the area with little success, I did manage to boat a 10kg yellow tail Kingfish which is good eating. We headed out to the 350 metre mark for a look and managed to have a hook bitten off by a shark, we headed into Penguin reef about 10 km's inshore of us to find after 5 km the sea just flattened out and there was no wind at all, perfect, we did a couple of slow drifts in 50 metres of water to find a lot of small picker fish but nothing big enough to catch, the water was clean and blue unusual for this time of year and with a lot of rat kingfish under the boat we got the jigs out for a bit of practice. After half an hour we got bored and headed into Kells for a Tarakihi fish for the table. The wind had gotten up again inshore but we were able to find a school of fish and put a dozen in the bin. While we were fishing we saw a very large mass of dolphins heading towards us there must have been hundreds of them heading out to sea, about 2 km away they turned and start to hi-tail it back towards shore, we then noticed a couple of large splashes behind them and saw a couple of killer whales (Orcas) herding them by doing large breach's behind them (we suspect the rest of the pod of killer whales were lying in wait for the dolphins in the shallows). Cool I've never seen an Orca before. We pulled the pick and headed home, about 5 k's from the ramp Murray saw a couple of water spouts and then we saw a whales tail as one dived, we thought the Orcas must have moved up here but these turned out to be real whales (Humpback whales) 3 of them surfaced near the boat and were heading up the coast, probably the ones we saw a few months back. Amazing to see 2 groups of different whales on the same day.

After talking to the Dept of Conservation it seems that the whales were Humpback not Southern Right.

04.06.11 Queens Birthday Weekend

Ancient old Pohutukawa tree

Looking up the road to Cape Runaway

Across the road from the Bach on Sunday

The Bach at Waihou Bay

Back after Saturdays fish

Queens birthday weekend is our last long weekend before summer, so Johnstone, Ethan, Evan and myself booked the Bach at Waihou Bay again. Hopefully the weather would be a lot kinder this year than last year, but the forecast wasn't that good. We headed up after work on Friday night in 2 4x4's with 2 small boats. The 4 hour drive was longer than usual due to the road conditions, since we were up the coast for our cricket trip in the end of May, there has been several large rain storms that has dealt to the roads with slips and washouts everywhere.
Saturday morning reveals a light to moderate northeasterly so we head to our cricket rock which is sheltered from the easterlies. We get the berlie out and are soon molested by Kahawai, it is real hard to get a large stray line bait to the bottom for the snapper to have ago at. When a bait does get to the bottom the snapper drag us into the weed or over a ledge and we do our best to keep the fishing shops in business for another year by losing trace after trace, but over the day we manage to catch 9 nice snapper and one small but legal Kingfish. As the day gets on the wind picks up and at times we have to hang on to the rocks in the gusts, so by 3pm we call it a day and head back to the beach, only to find the swell has picked up from flat to over a metre, it took some good seamanship to get the boats in safely.
Sunday turned out to be the same as last year - heavy rain, big swells and strong winds, so it ended up a day of cards and emptying the chilly bin.
One of these days our luck will change and we will get, great weather and even better fishing.

29.05.11 The perfect weather continues

With only a couple of days to go before it is winter in the southern hemisphere our run of perfect weather continues. Saturday I sleep in and decided to do some jobs around home, what a mistake not a breath of wind all day flat calm. Sunday we got up early to find a light southerly (our bad weather comes from this direction) so off we went. The sea wasn't as good as we had hoped with a 10 knot southerly the sea was choppy, we headed to Ariel reef for a snapper stray line and shallow water was quite rough. We gave the berlie time to work and perservered all morning for only 2 snapper, I must say Murray who hates stray lining was very patient and didn't start moaning until lunch time, at 1 pm we pulled the anchor and where heading out to south rocks when the cell phone went with a problem at work, so it was time to head in. About 8km's from shore the sea just flattened out and turned to glass, amazing how different the sea can be over a few k's.

footnote: It looks as if the Blue fin caught last week may be a world record, the heaviest world record Pacific blue fin on 60kg line is around 145kg even though NZ records are over 300kg. (may be the cost of registering for a world record puts us Kiwis off)

21.05.11 Perfect weather

Ethan posing next to Robbies 155.05kg Southern Blue Fin Tuna

For the last 7 days we have had perfect weather no wind, sunny and warm during the day at least and a couple of light frosts at night, all thanks to a large high pressure system covering New Zealand. The only downer is we have a 2-3 metre swell and I'm at work. Saturday it still looked good and the usual weekend weather turn to custard didn't happen. Murray and I were at the ramp at 6.30am and the sea looked perfect, the swell had dropped to a metre and the surfers and fishermen were in for a great day. We headed out to BS1A which is 34km out to sea and about 16 km out we came across 20 plus Albatross sitting on the ocean a sure sign of fish. The water temp was 17.4, a bit cold but we set a couple lures and 1 minute later Murray had a Skip jack tuna on board (I had thought they were long gone to warmer seas) we then hooked a couple of rat Kingfish which were released. With fresh bait on board we didn't want to waste the day we continued heading out to BS1A. On arrival we had a look around and found 8 metres of sign over the rock Murray caught his big Bass, we set up our first drift and to our disappointment we both caught sharks (full moon and slow tides....recipe for sharks) over the next 4 hours we managed to catch 4 Hapuka (2 each) in between numerous sharks. A lot of other boats were complaining of hard fishing so we think we did ok with 4 Puka we headed home with the conditions just getting better.

Footnote. Sunday morning I received a text from Johnstone that his son Ethan had been out all night on the boat Houston Broad bill fishing and they hooked a 155.05kg Southern Blue Fin tuna not far from where we were.

26.04.11 Cape Runaway

Johnstones green jacket winning 7.59kg snapper

The white Pointer Cricket teams annual fishing trip.
Well where do I start............At the beginning I guess.
Tuesday .. had to do the shopping for the trip (food etc) and load the car as well as sort out my gear for land based rock fishing, and pick up Evans small boat. Did I mention there was a gale and it was raining, not ordinary rain but torrential rain, rain that caused severe flooding, washouts and slips 100km's away in Wairoa.
While I was loading the car I said to my self, "self watch those steps they are slippery", and on the "hundredth" time coming down I ended in a tangled mess at the bottom, no real damage except to pride and a couple off bruises - good start.
Wednesday day morning the rain had stopped in the night and I was just getting out of bed and the phone went. Work - There has been an armed robbery last night, "Oh shit", A quick phone call to one of the boys "I will be late". Luckily no one was hurt and it looks like no weapon was used and they didn't get away with much. Two hours later I make it to our meeting spot. The boys had used the time well and had found out the road we were going to use was closed due to slips so we were able to use the only other route in.
We arrived at the farm house to see the front paddocks under water,and a quick check of the sea showed it was fishable, so it looked good for the next day.
Thursday... We load the small boats and head to Cricket Island, the wind had picked up again, but the island was sheltered and calm. We managed to catch a slow but steady stream of snapper and rat Kingfish (all returned to the sea), I managed to weigh the heaviest snapper for the day at 2.5kg.
Friday ... We head to Lottin point to launch the boats and go to a favorite rock island I love (Hams rock). Cod starts the day off with 7 baits and 7 snapper, the rest of the day is steady with all fish returned except 4 for tea, far cry from the old days when all fish were kept or wasted. Johnstone caught only one snapper all day but it was a good one 7.59kg. Back to the farm house and to a power cut that went to 9.30 that night, candle light tea cooked on the gas top.
Saturday .. was a great day weather wise hot and sunny and no wind, we went back to Hams rock and with the clear skies the fishing was hard but we all manged a couple of snapper or two but nothing to beat Johnstones 7.59kg fish that won him the "green jacket" for the third time. Again we had power cuts and the hot water still hadn't come on.
Sunday .... as we were leaving the clouds were gathering and the heavy rain returned and 3 days later it is still raining up there, so all in all we were very lucky to get 3 good days fishing in. Next year is our 20th year up there, so it will be a big one.