Fri 25 1 08 6:15 to 9pm
Betterthanwork invited me out & I accepted like a shot. We left Okahu Bay and ploughed thru a washing machine until we got closer to Motuihe channel and the sea flattened out. Arrived at the top of the yellow buoys in around 5 knots from the north and had good bites for me and a hookup for BTW on the first drop. Yeehaa! While he was playing the first fish captain BTW had to take evasive action to avoid crashing into a Luddite (medieval bait fisherman). Alan kept catching & I kept trying hard and we drifted down on top of a new 12 footer I haven't met before. They were hooking up as well, and maybe they were mates with Ajay, because he turned up and was also into them.
BTW was catching nice fish over 40cms and at the end of the first drift the score was something like 4 or 5 to Alan and 1 to me. Decided to ditch the 60lb trace I had on and tied directly from braid to a "captain's rig" I showed the 12 footers at Keith's. Put on Keith's red 3" squidgy that he kindly donated (not oursies) and immediately caught a keeper, but after that the bite slowed down and I had better luck with 4" & 5" lime tigers. About half way thru the second drift, the boat limit moved up to 40 cms and we put back heaps in the 35 to 39cm range - magic fishing, but not a lot of bigger ones. We still picked up the odd 40+ and were having a ball.
Meanwhile Ajay & mate were whooping and yeehaa'ing and looked like they were hitting the odd biggy. It was a party out there

I changed to a blue jighead and 5" sapphire shines and immediately got good hits with the odd hookup missed, but no worries, we had plenty of fish. My biggest fish came on the last drift when we sneaked a cheeky drift about 50m inside the ferry lane. Ended up with 14 fish and the score was something like 9-5 to BTW but I grabbed an oursie and here they are (35 to 50cms):
The view from my place in Glendowie across Tamaki Estuary to Aquacat's place in Bucklands Beach. Where were you Aquacat? All done by 6 pm?