Must see photography from Rambo Estrada.
Monday, September 19, 2011
Monday, September 12, 2011
Jumping ship in the darkness.
So it was time for the T.G.F.C Albert and Puka comp supported by Coastal fishing charters.
I headed down to Tauranga late afternoon Friday with a good-looking forecast for Saturday and shitter for Sunday,
We had some time at the club watching the AB’s take on Tonga for the opening of the RWC, where I had a good catch up with the crew from Strictly Fishing who had just taken my father in-law down to the Ranfurly Banks early in the week for some decent Puka and trumpeter.
We headed back to the boats about 11pm, when the skipper from strictly fishing Arron put out the plan for a late voyage out to the Rangatira Knolls for a broady drift.
Stu who is Arron’s right hand man and owner of Coastal charters opted to jump ship and he had an evening in the marina, while I got the chance to have a late night chasing critters from the deep with Arron and his crew member Storm.
We got out to the grounds around 1:30am with a glassy sea and a slow drift over a 300-400m knoll that Arron knew of, Bait was set and we tried to get some sleep. Around 3:00am we had our first bite, Arron was up and I was trying to find my Gumboots. After some gum booting around I was out on deck and getting into my harness as long pulls were taken from the 80w spool. Arron powered forward as we sunk the hook and the weight came on. It was slow weight, nothing like I had felt before, as the first light came into view. Out in the darkness was some thrashing on the surface as the beast came near.
The Bronze colour had me wondering but as Arron yelled for Storm who was still sleeping to come and lay a gaff in this 30 kilo critter.
It was an Oil fish and was a first for me; I was stoked even though it was not our target species. We set another bait but had no more bites, as we were welcomed to a beautiful Saturday morning.
The comp had started at 7am and we set out lures for a morning albert, we had good sign at 30m but with such a calm sea we couldn’t get the fish to raise, the jigs were dropped to no avail. Next stop were drops for some bottom dwellers, which were becoming very hard to find, we did twenty odd through the day and picked up some nice Blue Nose but nothing to weigh.
It was late afternoon and I got the call over the VHF that Ecstacy (my father and laws boat) were hungry and the Cabin bitch (me) needed to get back and cook dinner.
We headed into Southwest bay and anchored into an amazing evening and I cooked a well-deserved feed for five anglers.
We woke up on Sunday to 15 knots and raising shit as the Strictly fishing team left for the knolls to look for the Albert’s.
Ray and I headed back to base in a building sea, with a freshly blocked toilet courtesy of me. We got into the marina at lunchtime and straight into fixing the blocked pipes. Two hours later we had replaced the toilet system hose and really got ourselves in a state.
To be honest I was shattered…. Never slept so well!
Ps. Strictly fishing took out the heaviest Albert weighing 17.8kg Caught by Stu (LINK) and Jill Grey took the biggest wreck fish weighing 71.5kg taken of the boat free flow.
Sunday, September 4, 2011
Maiden Voyage.
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