With a decent weather window for Thursday and Friday I got hold of Tony to see if he was keen for a sword mission. wasn't hard to convince him, Crapper was keen to come for a look too so that was the crew sorted.
Tony suggested a place 30 miles behind the Barrier which looked wet enough too me so I was keen. We could tow Ruckus north or go from Maraetai, an extra 20 miles each way on the water or 2 hours each way in the Cruiser if we towed up to Omaha. I have always wanted to leave from Maraetai and catch a Billfish so decided to do it!
Wednesday arvo we shot in to the Viaduct and picked up some nice big squid baits, since we were down that way we went for a quick pint at Ohagans too.
Got home and hooked the boat up and shot up the road and gassed up, never filled the tank before but didn't want to be caught short so 400 litres in the tank it was.
Got all the weapons ready to load up in the morning (Mrs was a bit dark on having to park her car outside)
On the water at first light, didn't fancy travelling in the dark as there has been a lot of debris in the water after the recent bad weather.
Conditions weren't what we had been promised but was doable so we did!
Heading out I noticed the moon the was up, asked Tony if the moon was a good thing or a bad thing, he replied "hope its a good thing!" We decided it was Broadbill moon.
So 4 hours later we arrived the spot, saw a couple of other boats there so decided to start there.
Tony had a bait all rigged and after tweaking the sounder to get a good picture in 550m we dropped the first bait over. We had a couple of black birds, not sure what they are called but we told crapper they were good luck and named them Broadbill Ducks.
So after a bout 15m we saw the rod tip nudge a bit, Tony wound it a bit, then another tap tap tap, then slowly the rod bent over and we were on, all very casual, Tony says "We're on, whos going to wind it up?" I looked at Crapper and said, "you want to have go", he seemed keen so got harnessed up and started bringing up his first billfish.
Took crapper a wee while to get the hang of it, was a little bit of whining but not a lot of sympathy but plenty of instructions (F"EN WIND!!!) Luckily the arm he broke a few of weeks ago wasn't his winding arm! But the surgeon had screwed it all back together anyway so he should be sweet! He was quite partial to Granny Gear!
This was a first for the boat, and there was some speculation that it may be a shark, but as time went on Tony was telling us he was pretty confident (50%) it had a stick on its face. While we were bringingg it up a big pod of Pilot Whales cruised over to have a look, they were awesome, popping there heads out of the water and watching us, it was like the were standing on there tails with their heads out checking us out.
Got it up to about 50m and it started shaking its head and headed south for a while, Tony was now 99% it was Broady. After about 45 minutes we had colour and it did indeed have a stickface!
Tony had a shot at the leader but it wasn't ready yet and buggered off again, not too far but it wasn't real keen to come to close to the boat. The second time he got the leader it was for keeps! I slapped a couple of gaffs into it and it was job done!!
Not huge but we didn't care! To say we were happy would be an understatement!!
After a bit of a tidy up and a couple of beers we decided to head for home. Once we got some reception I managed to contact some people who organised for it to be weighed at Maraetai Boat Club.
Its was a long trip home, we had to keep making for toilet stops as the beer was going down quickly!
Got back to the club around 6pm where there was a bit of a crowd.
Pretty sure this was a first for the boat club too!
Club might need to get a catch board made up!
We headed home and Tony whacked the fillets off for us and we put them on ice to deal to in the morning!
Ended up with a fair bit of fish!
Shes pretty big job!
What a day!!! 175mile round trip, 253 litres of gas, 15 minutes waiting for a bite, 1 hour playing the fish, 9.5hrs motoring, a broadbill moon and some broadbill ducks!
Big thanks to Tony for sharing his expertise and to everyone who helped to arrange the weigh in!