Hi Bill, yeah i had a very interesting experience down their that's for sure.

We even managed to hook a couple off Mt Cook.

One thing worth mentioning is the water temperature down their. In February we had 19.1 down towards Jacksons bay, and this is in blue water full of sunfish.  Now if this isn't out of it i dont know what is.  For the first time in my fishing career, Rod and I saw a pack of marlin cruising together. It was'nt the usual activity when they herd up baitfish, but there was five of them( and this is no bullsh@t) actually side by side like in the start of a car race. Has anyone heard, or actually seen anything like this. I thought i was going bonkers.

Other things worth noting. I cant remember if i told you or not. But the commercial fishing vessel Elan caught a sailfish 60 nm due west off the manukau. This is the 2nd known capture i've heard about off the west coast, apparently taken on a hexhead.

Also ,I must congradulate you on those lures of your yours. The most consistent lures by far would be the pink and green, and red and green ( i think it was red and green.) We ran them on the whiskey lines and hooked striped marlin on them also.

That new one you sent down to us. As soon as it hit the water it was nailed. Not by a tuna, but a bloody big Seal. It even threatened to attack Rod. I hear that they are an endangered species, i think that the latest estimate puts them at 500,000 so i'm wondering when we're gonna have the annual cull. They're in plague proportions, it's not funny. We even had to deviate our way through the damn things.

Also was chatting with another skipper the other night. Are you going to be supplying westfleet next season. If so good on ya, they've proven themselfs.

OOops & Uncle ......

Hi Bruce, The lures i am refuring to are the MacSkippys from Tauranga

For tuna, we look for the straight running lures, as lures which have too much action don't seem to get bit.

In terms of the marlin. Yes both hooked plenty of marlin, however we put that down to downsizing our lures. We've been using single hooks, and each hit from marlin we were hooked up.

We came back from the kings last week and my mate actually pulled in three stripys on his bungy cords. He was trolling hexheads also.