Last night I hatched a plan with my mate Pea - I had been watching the swell on the Westcoast and it had been dropping for awhile.
Even though it only said less than a mtr, I thought it was worth having a crack off Muriwai as it had been awhile since my last mish out there. We were taking another mate out (Jas) who had never fished or launched out off Muriwai before. On the trip out there, Pea and I talked about some of our previous times we had fished it in the 12ft tin - telling Jas that even a couple of times we had to move after an hour to find smaller fish to take home as everything was 15 - 25lb and even then we still had to take fish around that 10lb mark.
I could see in Jas's eyes the excitement of sitting off Muriwai rods buckled over and pulling in double fig fish - We had a plan B as well and that was if we couldn't get out we would back track and head up to the Kaipara to launch off Shelly beach, we were excited in hope that plan A would work for us.
Heading down towards Maori bay I could see swell lines and surfers - There was no white water around the island though and that's always a good sign, as we stopped above Maori Bay it looked like plan B may had to be the go. You could see along the beach there were places that were flat and the odd lull so we ended up driving down to have a good look, We sat there for awhile in hope there would be lulls long enough for us to launch but the decision was made to head for Shelly's.
Launching at Shelly's I gave my local mate a ring as he had been out since first light - He told me about a spot that he had been catching a lot of pan size snaps so it was off to spot X. Giving Jas directions it only took a couple of mins, I think he was keen for a long run to chase some fish but nope throw the pick over this is it.
Sitting in about 5mtrs of water we got away with stray lining 1oz ball sinkers - the first 10-15mins yield a few small snaps and there was talk already of shifting, ringing my mate he said hang in there they should start swimming through about now with that tide running.