East Cape Mission adventure
A bit of a stuttery start to this one for me with
my team mate blowing out his shoulder at work and having to pull the pin
late. I pm'd rayh late on Thursday night to see if i could tag along
with him and glynn as i wasn't keen on fishing on my own on Saturday due
to the poor
forecast.
We
headed down the coast stopping at the Ohope Chartered club to see where
the business was going to happen for weigh in and the prizegiving and
catch up with Orty for a chat and try and work out where people were
going to try on Saturday. We were quickly on the road again and rayh and
glynn kindly let me crash with them in Te Kaha. The boat ramp at Te
Kaha looked calm and that was 'plan A'. We stashed our gear and headed
further east for a recce to find a spot to fish in case the wind changed
direction over night and found a couple of likely looking spots (plan
B).
We got up at 5am Saturday morning to 30kts coming straight
in to Te Kaha and a very ugly sea, 'plan A' out the window and back to
bed until sunrise, up again at 7 and on the road. We arrived at our spot
with a good sized swell rolling in but safe launching. The fishing was
quite hard, rayh and glyn stuck to the softies and drifted the bay. I
anchored up and deployed the berley, the fishing was slow. I got a
fewmacks in the berley so started cathing them and butterflying them. I
soon picked up a reasonable kahawai then a small pannie, after another
hour i got a good sized pannie which went 1.8 kg's then a 1.3kg JD (not
on the comp list). rayh and glyn weren't having much success with rayh
picking up a reasonable kahawai and the sea was getting worse so we
pulled the pin and headed back to have some lunch and plan an afternoon
attack. After lunch the weather worsened so it was back to catch a zzz's
and we decided to head back and weigh in.
A few suprises at
weigh in with most staying away the first night and only 14 odd people
weighing in. However it was a good opportunity to check on the weather,
the forecast for Sunday was looking very promising so back to base and
we planned to head back to the same spot.
Up at 5.30 and on the
water just after first light, what a change a day makes with almost
perfect glassy conditions and next to no swell at all. We spread out to
fins the fish, i wasn't having much success and after an hour or so
decided to check out what glynn was up to. He had a huge school of macks
below and was loading up on livies, then he was hooking up on rat kings
and getting smoked by some good snapper. I anchored up and joined the
action, getting taken to the cleaners on almost every cast. rayh soon
joined us and the action was full on for almost 2 hours. I made a number
of schoolboy errors, anchoring and drifting into glyn and whilst
untangling myself from that i had a strayline out which while i was
turning got tip wrapped then absolutely smashed by a fish which resulted
in a broken rod in very spectacular fashion
. I had too many rods out and kept missing the strike and they had me if the weed
It
wasn't all going the fish's way however with glyn picking up some
respectable snaps, he had an absolute ripper on for a good 7-8 minutes
before getting right royally reefed. rayh got some some good kahawai and
some nice sized pannies. Glyn was slaying rat king after rat king. He
kindly let me hook one too, which he insisted was one he'd already
caught and released, i decided to measure it for myself. It wasn't huge
but it was legal at 80cm and in the bag he went
. I picked up a couple of nice pannies and got reefed by some very big
fish which i couldn't stop, rayh and glyn ended up the same. Note to
selves - bigger gear required and only one bait at a time
The
action died off and we picked another fish or two each for eating and
headed in. Washed, cleaned and back to the weigh in. Hot home made soup
and buttered french stick on arrival (nice one Justin) fish weighed in
with Glyn's spapper going 2.4kgs, my king going a measly 5.77kg and
rayh's kahawai just a 'little' over 2kgs. We arrived to see a very good
snapper being weighed just shy of the 20lb mark, and soon another very
close to the first. We waited with baited breath to see what the locals
would weigh as well as the guys that put in the miles and went to hicks
and lottin pt.
Prizegiving kicked off with Rob Fort as mc this
time, a great venue with the cheapest beer i've had in sometime. We sat
at the lucky table, glynn picked up the average weight snapper prize,
rayh the heaviest kahawai and i managed the heaviest kingfish as
surprisingly it was the only one weighed in. I also managed the overall
combined weight trophy. I'll let the others post about their fish as
there are some great stories to go with the fish weighed.
I have
to say a big thanks rayh and glyn and to Justin for his organisational
skills and of course the sponsors who have the made the series as much
fun as it has been so far and i'm looking forward to the Kayak Pro
Bridge to Cape.
PT