Nicely done FQ. 

Towkay and I went down to the bottom end again. Struggled all morning and only had 2 in the bin by lunchtime on Gulp. All the usual spots on the seaward side of Rotorua Island, strangely quiet. Very foggy, low visibility, and a nasty chop made for some pretty hairy conditions in the little boat as we made our way round the top of the waiheke channel around noon, finally got to Hooks Bay where it was calm enough to enjoy Towkay's packed lunch of egg mayo sandwiches and Guinness. Ace 

Fish remained elusive till we finally got the wind and tide in the right direction and picked up another 3 kelpies at Kauri Point on Z Man on the way back plus a big gurnard. All the fish were fat and chunky, biggest was 45.

First opportunity after the gummint let us boat fishers loose.  Went to Takapuna but the carpark was full, so went to Narrow Neck and launched there.  George and I motored out to Rangi lighthouse and started drifting out with the tide.  Just one long drift, NNW with a light northerly slowing our drift speed down to 0.2 knots at times.  We fished with soft baits and a kabura, and the latter sucked in 2 colours, no bites at all.  Slow start on the soft baits too, but eventually they started to bite.  Lures were mostly dragged but the first keeper grabbed a bait being wound in.  Used old school worm hook rigs with the sinker up against the hook, and a couple of Carolina rigs where the hook was separated from the sinker by about 30 cms of trace.  Last to go in the rodholder was a flasher rig with 4" Gulp soft baits.  This rig caught a gurnard.  Also got 4 snapper 31 to 40cms on the soft baits.

Not a bonanza, but a small feed for 2 families,  Happy daze!

Great to get out again even though it was a bit lumpy.  Happy to let Rod Holder take most of the credit, but got a few on the microjig.  Colour of the day: Golden Boy curlytail.

Launched Takapuna with Cameron.  Arriving before 6am, there was a queue of cars & trailers wanting to launch.  Probably took quarter of an hour to launch, so not too bad.  Went out to the Rangi light area again and drifted out with the tide.  Misjudged the wind direction and the line of the first drift was a bit too close to Rangi.  Only one or 2 snaps on the first drift, but caught a few jack macks and got a live bait down to drag along as we drifted.

Second drift was much better and picked up 4 snapper.  Cameron's Gulp lime tiger crazy legs were the lure of the day and got maybe 6 out of 8 snapper.

The last drift was affected by the tide running out of steam, the the bites less regular and the snaps smaller.  I picked up a really good JD on the live bait.  Slow drifts are good for JD's - they can keep up.

Cameron with a snap:

JD

The JD had a small flounder it it:

Beautiful weather, great company, reasonable fishing and the ramp wasn't busy when we got back.