Me and Her in doors arrived home from a week in Rarotonga with a couple of mates on Thursday arvo, had thought about doing some fishing and diving over there but I'm a bit of a tight a@@ when it comes to paying money for that sort of thing overseas when often its a lot better at home, and cheaper!
We stepped out of the airport, still in my shorts and singlet and got a bit of a surprise, what had they done with the seemingly endless summer everyone was raving about before we had left? On a plus note the water tank was full when we got home.
So Friday morning rolled around and I double checked swellmap but still not looking flash so it was time to go and pick up the cat and the dog from the kennels, on the way there we had to endure loads of road works and stop go jokers so decided we would take the scenic route home and go around the coast road from Clevedon to Maraetai.
As we came through Clevedon the conversation turned to things like weed strimming, mowing lawns and finishing off some concreting (it was a one way conversation with Mrs Bull transmitting! As we passed Duders I noticed how flat it was out there, so I joined the conversation "we should shoot out for a fish!" her reply, "why?", I'm thinking "seriously!! " To try my new rod and make sure the boat still floats" but she was having none of it.
Arrived home and Crapper (Aaron) sends me a message saying we should have popped out for a fish! To make a long story short, 10 minutes later Ruckus was hooked up and with my soft bait rod and chilly bin loaded up we were off to the ramp.
Popped down the coast a bit in a straight line from the ramp, stopped in 7m of water and got to it, wasn't too long and I was on to a decent snapper, first fish on the new Shimano Energy Concepts rod, it put a nice bend in it although I think its time I got the Stradic 2500 serviced (Never been serviced in 5 or so years ). Stoked to have bent the new rod!
We carried on the drift and picked up another but then nothing for a while so reset the drift and got another reasonable fish in, I think it was about 3 nill at this stage, I was starting to think Aaron was only good for catching broadbill!
We had been keeping an eye on some rain approaching and discussing if it was going to miss us or not, it didn't! So we did what all keen fishermen would do when it starts raining, had a fossick in the bin and pulled out some beverages and pointed the nose to the wind and waited for it to pass!
Only had to wait one beer and it was a beauty day again! A far cry from the 25-35kts in the forecast!
Next drift Aaron interrupted the serenity with a little squeal and I look over to see his rod bent over, false alarm, he had the bottom! A few minutes later and another excited yelp, again, the rod was bent but this time it had a nod, about time! Then my chicken got picked up as well and it was double hook up!
A couple of nice pannies came aboard and it was 4-1.
Another reset and a drift with 0. Reset again and after a couple of casts Aaron decided to help himself to some of my secret sauce, a
couple of casts later he was on again! 4-2! It was getting late now and Aarons curfew was almost up so we decided on one more cast. Aaron hooked up again bring the board to 4-3. He was getting a little excited now so decided the curfew could be extended a little, so we had a few more casts but he wasn't looking like he was going to catch up so we headed in.
So that was it, a few hours fishing in the shallows using a total of 8 litres of gas! A tad different to the last trip with Aaron on Ruckus, about 11.5 hours motoring less, 8 hours on the water less, 250 litres of gas less and fishing in 7-5m as opposed to 5-600m! Still it was fishing and plenty of fun!
Got home to fillet the catch, not bad for a few hours fishing, not huge but pretty fat!
Lived here for 9 years, the neighbours cat has never turned up at the filleting bench in that time, but he turned up today as though it was the usual thing to do, so I gave AJ a few bits of snapper to keep him happy.
With a decent feed of fresh fish I txt my mate Craig to see if they were keen for dinner, only snapper, salad and spuds, nothing fancy! Sounds good he reckoned. I whipped up a couple of plates of sashimi for the entrée to go with the Honey, Vietnamese mint, lime and garlic salt fish parcels topped with shaved/toasted almonds!
Knocked off a couple whiskeys on the rocks after dinner to top off a cracker day, a day that started with nothing special on the agenda that suddenly became one out of the bag, which often happens around these parts! Great to be home!