Well, what a trip...........
As the date drew closer the weather looked like it might win the day but we got lucky.
We met at the Whakatane Game Club around 530pm Thursday, was a bit like a blind date, are you...............sweet I'm. Some people had licence plates that helped identify them, others just found us by misfortune
. After trying to remember names it was soon flaged and it was back to website handles. A round or two of cold ones a quick meal it was off to the Coast Guard building to do the sorting of gear learning of correct knots and sharing of information. This was a great idea, with a little help the PR knot is pretty easy to get the hang of. we covered off many other issues.
Back to the boat to load up the gear. Rick Pollock was pretty impressed with the amount of fine gear, I was impressed by the amount of gear some guys had with them. With most of the gear stowed away a plan had hatched and within moments the dock was void of life. The boys had gone GAME HUNTING Whatakane style
. I missed the main event probably not a bad thing.
During the night we had some of the locals fishing and playing some sounds, nice and close to the boat, which kept those back at the boat entertained and awake. Around 3 am from the stories told we had some people boarded the boat and check out the bridge and crash on the floor. Good on ya Kane (deckie) got that sorted.
Day light broke to some new sounds..............laughter, and the grumble of the engines. Soon enough we were on our way to the fishing grounds. The sea state was pretty comfortable and improving as we closed in on the Smokie Isle. A journey of approximately 2.5 hours gave time for a feed of breakfast coffee and some cam time...opps sleep time. Plenty of chatter around the chart as we spoke of places fished etc.
Rick eased back on the throttle as we approached the first mark..............
OK Boys was the call and the first round of heavy metal was deployed to the depths. Due to the numbers and the banter the group was split into 2 groups. With two drops complete we had drifted of the mark and group A had a nice round number to start the day with. Group B also started with a equally impressive start............. Ok boys lets wind up and move to next spot.
Muscles warmed up...........A team moved to the rail and the first fish hooked up, this was followed by a few more, as everyone in the first group hooked up. Group B moved to the rail and again the action was continued. At some stage the groups merged and Pursuit had 13 rods jigging!! Not much current helped.
The tutors moved around the group and made helpful comments and demonstrated the correct method.
We moved again and the fish got a little bigger and some of them turned into sharks............two of which were landed and released, Rick called them at 114 and 120kgs.
We moved to a few more spots but the fishing was.....well a little slow. Kaveman took the money for the biggest of the day which was a nice fish taged and released. After a few more drops we made a move back towards the dock. we trolled back towards Whale Is and hooked up on a couple of skippies one landed the other released just as it neared the boat.
Rick spotted gannets splashing down a mile to the east and he put the hammer down. We were followed to the work up by a big pod of dolphins, unfortunately we missed the boat on the work up as quickly as it started it was over. Never the less a bit of excitement.
As we approached Whakatane the wind had picked up and we had a choppy slop for the balance of the trip.
On arrival back to the dock we made our way down to the Game Club for another couple of cold ones. Bloody nice. The result of the trip was approximately 70 kingies landed, nothing to write home about but thats fishing. I would like to thank all the guys it is always interesting when a bunch of guys get together that have never met before, the whole team got on very well and I think there maybe another trip in the not to distant future. I really enjoyed myself some good memories and friendships have been made, I learnt a lot from the tutors and would say to anyone interested in jigging to put their name into the hat early next time one of these events takes place you will learn heaps.
Thanks guys.
Murf
PS live bait well..................not spa pool
.
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