Sunday morning weather reports weren’t looking to bad with swell map forecasting 10-15 knot SW for the morning and 15-20 Knot SW for the afternoon for Bream Bay. With the boat in the water at 6am at Marsden Point with the plan to hit the No7 buoy with the jigs first up , then head outside with poppers and soft baits.

There were a couple of boats already working the buoy and a quick squiz in the sounder showing not a lot. A couple of passes later with no one hooking up saw us heading outside the harbour into Bream Bay.  There were plenty of Gannets working  down the bay but no real sign of fish on the surface.

Mike put us over some fowl with the sounder beaming back red, plenty of snapper and Kingfish sign. We had both recently got a new popper outfits and were eager to try them. First up we both had different colour Nomads on which had instant follows and boils. There were some good fish amongst them but none hitting the lures. A couple of similar drifts with lots of follows but no contact saw us changing, Mike to River& Sea stick baits and myself to a locally Whangarei made Super Blooper popper. The wind was increasing all the time and now blowing a steady 15-20 knots from the south west by 8am and by now the Kingies were hard out hitting the lures with real gusto. Sometimes the lure would only just hit the water to be pounced on and other times followed almost to the boat before being seized.  This was such a buzz, really exciting fishing visual fishing with both of us hooked up to fish several times.

It was a hectic 6 hours fishing with by my count only one drift without a follow or a fish, some 30 odd boated and released with at least half that again hooked and lost. Most fish were around that 8 to 10 kilo mark with Mike dropping 2 that pulled lots of string before shedding the hook.  By midday the wind was up to around 30 knots still from the SW so we headed back in, the Kingies still going off and no time to try for the snapper. I dare say we’ll try them next time if we can resist the popper fishing.