Stepson Jerry arrived home from work on Monday and his first words to me were “Want to go fishing tomorrow?” Apparently he was a bit peed off with what was going on at work and needed to clear his head. I didn’t need any second asking as it has been the best part of a month since I was last out on the water and I was getting a bit twitchy hanging around home.
The drive in the fog through to Kawakawa Bay was interesting but we made it without incident and were greeted with the flattest water I have seen in a long time with not a single puff of breeze to form a ripple of any sort. As we headed out I couldn’t help but feel how we were somewhat insignificant in our little boat bobbing on a big blue sea (which was true of course) and had never really had that feeling before. Sometimes Mother Nature has a way of showing folks where they fit in the grand scheme of things.
I had mentally formed plans A through D for the day after getting a bit of intel from a couple of likely suspects ....so thought all bases had been covered. Not so....and after trying all my usual haunts including a burst up to Lone Rock (off Anita Bay) – this was plan C which turned out to be a complete waste of time and gas – we decided plan D would be our best bet on the last of the incoming tide close in at the south western end of Ponui Channel near the lighthouse. This had been our go to spot a couple of years ago and we thought it had to be worth checking out once more.
And we were very glad we did because by that time of the afternoon we only had a couple of kahawai, a single snapper and a lonely just-legal gurnard in our bin and I had been desperately reviewing my data bank wondering where to go next if this spot also failed to fire. However, we came across terns working over a kahawai workup and with the water being so much like a mirror it was easy to see the splashes from the kahawai as they chased baitfish desperately trying to flee from them. We managed to get a further 4 kahawai and 5 snapper (caught on the drop) before the switch got turned off and the bite was done and dusted.
So the cold smoker has been trickling away all afternoon and I have just been out to add some heat to finish things off.
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