Thursday Day 1
Woke up to around 12 - 15 knots with hot brew on the cooker, left the marina first light to go fill up on fuel. All was done so made our way to the entrance and head to the lab to catch some bait. BANG. F#%K Ray says. Smoke every were, lifted the floor to find we had split a exhaust elbow. GOOD START
So we head back to the marina and Ray is of to the volvo shop to get a new one. All is fixed an cleaned under the floor and we are on the way back out the entrance within the hour. Was pretty sloppy on the way out with a meter and half and south east.
Got to the lab and with 7 Kahawai in the livebait tank we set up for out first day, we had herd there were allot of mako's around but there must have been a bill in-between them.
Makos were there an tagged the first one by 1pm, only around 20kg pretty cute, rest that afternoon was the same loosing about 5 or 6 baits to shark.
Highlight was a massive Manta ray the was feeding on krill on the back of the reef was swooping and flipping just under the surface, what an amazing creature. Came under the boat once tried taking a photo but then shark struck.
Stayed the night at Motiti in Cattle bay and had a snapper fish, and the sharks followed but ended up with dozen snaps.. Few rums and wines and Westmere butcher Rissoles for dinner,
Friday Day 2
Pulled ourselves from bed around 6:30 and got stuck into some coffee, Head back to the lab to get some more bait with around 12 knots of south east, Found nice school just on the north western side of Motiti so saved us some time. Today we had a plan to fish schooner as we had got two stripeys from the same place two season prier.
Also we hoping the sharks would be less, the water was around 1 degree cooler then the lab. Fished the morning with one bait come back dead and scaled, meaning there was a beakie in the area. But never popped his head up, tagged two more shark and got some action on the jigs and softballs.
Was around 5 stripeys tagged in the day up north around the aldies and mayor
Glassed of in the arvo and headed back to Motiti for snapper fish. The motiti midgets were in force and only came away with few snaps.
Amazing sun set and steak and rum for Dinner.
Friday Day 3
Up early this morning around 5:30 being a short and final day of the comp and headed to the lab to get bait, Plan was to head back to schooner as we had that bait scaled and wanted to give it another shoot, Another picture perfect live baiting day with no wind at all and baits were free to do there job.
But much to our discuss the Little mako's were in full force and lost all our baits by 1pm, F#%CEN THING> So tried to get some more bait around the schooner but could only achieve couple trev's. These will do.
Moved away from the reef and set the baits in around 100m out side schooner hoping to get away from the sharks, Was plenty of skippies along the 100 and for F sake the lives lasted about five mins. SHARKS
So moved out further with fresh Trev and a Y under the balloon, when POP the long balloon got smashed and went deep. I was on the rod and with the way it was fighting hard and deep was thinking big king. Fought it for 20 mins and would you believe it. Another shark this time a bronzie around 100kg, tag was placed and retrieved the hook, JUST.
Over this so put the lures out and headed north for the final couple hours of fishing, heaps of skippies but nothing happening, pulled lures in at 2pm and went for a swim in the deep and blue.
Have to say amazing comp, Sparkey on the VHF alway a good listen and prizes were great. Went home with T&R shark prize one air compressor and spray gun and second biggest Albert spot price which was a 1000 travel voucher and Penguin sean and surf Kingy chilly bag.
Big ups to the mount club. And looking forward to TGFC one base next week.
