Wednesday 3/4/19 8:45 to 11:15 am
Took photos of all the fish caught and here is the diary (all snapper):
1st drift Cloud to Devonport wharf
9:06; 36cms; orange yellow kabura (oyk)
9:13; undersize (us); Zman curlytail new penny 4" (zcnp4)
9:16; us; Gulp lime tiger 4" minnow (glt4m)
9:19; us; zcnp4
9:24; us; zcnp4
9:33; us; zcnp4
9:42; us; zcnp4
9:51; us; Gulp orange/yellow squid vicious
9:56; us; glt4m
10:07; us; oyk
10:17; 42cms; oyk
There was some foul off Devonport wharf and I lost a kabura and a Zman in quick succession
Moved round to Rough Rock off Cheltenham beach
10:50; 36cms; green/gold kabura (ggk)
11:04; 32cms; ggk
11:07; us; Gulp crazylegs new penny
11:10; us; Zman atomic sunrise 4" shad
11:11; 34cms; ggk
11:16; us; oyk
Drifted out for about 45mins and the fish were bigger on average. Water was only around 10 to 12m deep here. Kept 1 for dinner and all the rest went back.
Friday 5/4/19 8am to 11:30am
Met a mate at Waikawau Bay and launched the boat in the river. pretty good facilities and a $15 charge for using the ramp, which was busy as!
Went out to the mussel farms and decided that the first factory boat was only cleaning buoys and not worth following. Headed over towards the middle of the farm and tied off to one of the buoys. We got a couple of nice snapper here but then started catching tiddlers. Tried drift fishing with soft bait, bait and kaburas in about 14m between the mussel farms and the Coromandel peninsula. Caught more tiddlers so headed back to the farms. We found another boat cleaning buoys and he had a few small boats around him. We got close, tied off, and cast against the side of the factory boat. We got another 3 nice fish, 2 snapper and a KY. Nothing big, snapper to 46cms and 1 KY about 55cms.
It was a bit different to my usual FC390 trips, and learnt a lot. Take a hook next time to quickly attach to the buoys. Don't ignore the buoy cleaning boats. Squid was the best bait.