Alright guys, we're back. Needed a day to recover from that trip!!!
So we left on Saturday morning early, towed 10 hours to wellington and then found out that the ferry was running late. Finally got to picton about 11pm after the dickhead on the ferry guided me back into a jackknife. Up the next morning and drove to Westport just in time to see cova rose come in from catching 2 on the first night. Off we went about 90km offshore and as soon as we arrived there was a trawler getting ready to haul his nets. Had a go around that but we hadn't figured out how hard to go around them yet. nothing happened. Then it got dark and it was pretty overcast so with no horizon visable and the weather worse than forecast my whole crew got themselves sick and I was the only one standing. Chased a few foreign boats around and managed to spool our number one set up, not the way you want to be spooled tho, something blew off the boat, hooked up the trace and spooled us while we were motoring along!!! Crap, time to get out the next best setup, after chucking this out the first time I noticed my mate had done an underwrap when we rigged it so we had to empty off 1km of line and wind it back on. Half way thru emptying it I noticed it got heavy, yep, damn shark on the end.
By the time we got this sorted we couldn't see any trawlers, motoered back in the direction we last saw them for 20mins and still couldn't find them. Crew was stuffed by now with sea sickness and we had no idea what to do without a trawler in sight. So wrote off the night and went to bed.
Next morning the crew was still a bit shakey but not as bad. Managed to get a friend at home to look on the AIS and found out the trawlers had all taken off almost 100km south!!! we certainly didn't count on that when planning out our fuel!
So did some number and dipsticking in the tanks, decided we could get down there and back but wouldn't have much left to chase the trawlers. So off we went. Got down there in the afternoon and found all the trawlers, had to be pretty smart about how much moving around we did as the gas situation was pretty tight! Had some kiwi trawlers let us know when nets were coming up so tried around them, then had 2 legend captains sit up and process for us for a while, first one for half an hour but nothing took. Next time the trawler sat around for hours for us. We fished right next to cova rose and after an hour of backing almost up the trawlers back door covarose hooks up 20m away from us, we ended up stuck between them and the trawler and I was freaking when I could see their line coming straight at us. Eventually managed to escape with out cutting them off.
We stayed there for another couple of hours chucking baits at the trawler and all the fish crap coming out the side. we did this all night in fact, 6am saw the horizon just starting to light up, we were out off chum now, completely stuffed from lack of sleep, had 2 or 3 hoki left for bait and drifted off the trawler in despair.
Mate was winding in the second last bait while slumped over the side half asleep when suddenly he's screeming that he's hooked up! None of us could believe it as we were broken. But after about 3.5 milliseconds we were all frothing and backing up on the fish which was taking off on the surface, pretty sure our howling could be heard for many miles at this stage!
15mins later the fish dived deep and looked like it was about to really get going when suddenly it all went slack. gear was fine, just the damn hooked pulled out after 20mins!!
To say we were gutted was an understatement. we had nothing left, so with our tails between our legs and our eyes hanging out our heads we started the 2.5 hour cruise back to Westport. Had heard another trailer boat offereing someone gas if they needed it and that was the only reason I felt comfortable pushing it so close with gas, so finding the most economical speed and trim possible we got back after an eternity, dropped the guys off to get the vehicle, reversed out to drive the boat on the trailer and ran out of gas!!!
made it by 50mls!!!
Phew, the drive from Westport to picton was the hardest drive Ive ever done, all 3 of the guys were slumped over snoring and ive never fought sleep so hard in my life. But we made it.
Learnt heaps, had an awesome time, will do a few things different next time, and made it home without any majors. Stoked to have hooked up, but gutted to have missed out.
But hey, next year we'll be in and we'll be ready this time!
Go get nice and fat Bluefin, we're coming back!!