For a change in scenery, (and to take advantage of the narrow weather window), Griff and I launched from Jones Bay at zero dark hundred on Saturday morning on a Kingie mission.

With the assistance of the outgoing tide, we paddled across to Fairchild Reef at a leisurely 9.5kmph .  Everything was initially quiet, however, as we filled our holders with live bait, small boil ups started to rise from around the reef .  With a handful of livies each, we moved out from the reef, just as the birds started to descend and predator fish began breaching the surface chasing the abundance of Jack Macks 

Using circles, I lost my first Kingie by being a little too eager on the drag - "bad Justin" .  However, my grief was short-lived as it was only a couple of minutes until both Griff and I were hooked up, feeling the line rub up against the kelp and fighting to keep the Kingies off the bottom.  Fighting Kingies from the yak in the shallows is always a challenge as you have little say in what direction you go .  Nonetheless, we managed to land these two bruisers and a number of others, keeping two for the family before we headed across to Maori Rock.

Here the Kingie sign was somehow greater than that at Fairchild with constant work ups on the Eastern side of the feature.  Having our self-imposed quota though, we focussed on Snapper with Griff taking the honours, slaying a number of good eaters with the Zman Motor Oil.  Strangely the snapper seemed oblivious to my Bruised Banana 

With the wind picking up over 20kts we decided to pack it in and did a couple big lazy drifts back to Jones Bay for photos and coffee 

And a couple of snap-shots :

1. On the water at first light,

2. The sunrise shot 

3. Griff getting on the board,

4. Little bit of catch & release 

5. One for the bin 

6. Time for tea & scones