Fishing Reports - White island carnage

After a fantastic november snapper fishing i was looking forward to the 3rd of december to head to white island chasing kingies......december started well then my boat broke down (and is still broken) then 3 days after christmas my dad passed away after a long illness..with dad passing 2 days out from the white trip and the funeral the day after the trip i decided to go thru with the charter and headed off on saturday lunch time with my mates from work and "elpescador" from this site..
The trip down was uneventfull except for 300 piss stops for mikey and a bit of lite hearted humour amoungst the boys.
We loaded "pursuit" with piss and tackle and headed out into 25knts of sw wind,the trip out was good but a few miles off the island the seas got pretty ruff and a bit rolly.
At anchor for the night we proceded to catch livies,i was using mikeys new spining reel which had lights that flashed as you turned the handle and looked like a disco ball.
All was going well untill a flying fish hit me square in the chest at high speed,followed quickly by another in the shoulder.
These rockets were driven by the now 30knts of wind and were very dangerous.
We continued catching livies with the boys now distancing them selves from me as the flying fish were hitting my area every few minutes.
We hit the sack at 12.30 with 70 live jacks and a squid in the tank as well as a few flying fish .
The anchorage was a bit rolly but we got some sleep.
The morning dawned and with breakfast under our belts and 20knts of wind we headed for the volkners.
The trip was slow due to the confused sea,mikey had the 1st gin and tonic open(5.45) and we were rigged and ready to fish.
The 1st drift we had 6 livies down and hooked 4 fish,the second drift was 3 kings and this carried on with good fishing each drift with the fish about 15 to 19kgs most of which were released.
Heres Elpescador with a nice fish

Lionel turned up on memory maker and soon found the going hard,3 other boats jigging were getting nothing as well.
Both El and my self jigged for 2 drifts with not even a tap.
The fish were biting livies so we went changed to livies and hooked up instantly.

The fishing continued like this till 11am when the sea flattened off to glass and the fish went berserk.
What followed was complete carnage,on 1 drift we boated 8 kings with the fish biting right up in to the shallows .(26 mtrs)

We were getting smasahed to bits by the kings that were now all between 22 and 30kgs.
This fish was 1.39 mtrs on Pursuits measure and very skinny,rick put it between 30 to 33kgs
But im happy with 30

Heres donny with a fish over 30kgs.hes pushing 130 and hardly sweating LOL

And another fattie a bit smaller
Al got smashed on a livie fished on his jm 500 and then a shark smashed him.The head of this fish suggested a fish in the mid 30kgs.

Donny and my self had boated fish est at 30kgs on the same drift and the other boys all had some big fish.Heres Rick about to iki Mikey because he wont lift the fish.
Get me a gin deckie im parched...and wheres that stunt cone gone LOL

For me the day was already a ripper with 8 fish over 20kgs and a fish of 30+ kgs(released).
The new jm300 kojak and OJ4000 was hooked up with a 450gram rocket jig and dropped.....it never hit the bottom and was hammered on the drop by a new pb on a jig for me at 26kgs.

After a Courtesy weigh by the skipper it was released into the ice box LOL

... i dropped again on the same drift and once again the jig never hit the bottom...24kgs of kingi released.
Being totally jig "un fit" and hurting bad i dropped again on the same drift and made the bottom.
Two winds and smash,this fish was smoking off and the bend in the rod made me take it from the gimble and point it at the fish on full drag and thumbs on the spool.
This fish made its freedom never stopping its 1st run till it broke free.
After re rigging with another jig we started another drift and i dropped the jig,1/2 way down it got smashed,with the rod in the gimble rick quickly had me take it out and once again.The bend in the 300 was more than kojak would of wanted and the voice of reason said point it at the fish and hang on.
Judging how far to let the jig rods bend is something that i will learn in time i guess but im not going to take any risks.Running 48kg braid thiers not alot of room for error LOL

That was 2 gone so another was rigged up,this on the same drift i dropped the jig down and jigged it up 10mtrs when it was slammed hard.
I kept the rod in the gimble this time and closed my eyes... the fish was steaming down when the OJ packed it in for the day.The fish was pulling hard and the reel was not feeling good at all.
The drag was backed off and the fish lost.The reel was retired for the trip with a suspected blown anti reverse bearing.. Confused

While this was going on with me Al was catching fish hard out as were the other boys.
The anglers were dropping like flys with 2 sitting out the rest of the day and didnt fish again till midday on the last day.
Elpescador never sat out,here he is with another fat fish

This was turning into a very special day,Lance on enchanter pulled up along side and we gave him 10 livies for his crew of juniors who were fishing a comp.
They fished along side us with the kids all getting fish between 17 and 26kgs.
The day for us ended at 3.30 with broken bodies broken reels and an empty live bait tank.
39kings for the day.
10 for Donny the maori (off the geoff thomas tonga trip) 17 to 30kgs 2 sharked
11 for elpescador (19 to just under 30kgs) 1 sharked ,4 busted off
10 for me (19 to 30+kgs) 4 busted off on jigs, 2 on livies
2 for mikey (22 and 26kgs)
1 for des (26kgs) retired hurt after the 1st fish
5 for iane (17 to 24kgs)
We travelled into the island and fished for trevs,the burley worked a treat and attrtacted every rat kingi in the area to the boat LOL

..so no trevs but lots of kingies and terakihi.
Rat kings were on tap and took a popper at will,every cast a hook up.
We had a school of koheru in the burley and put 12 in the live bait tank as well as another squid.
The night went by very slow with the deckie making many coffees... with the bait tank finally full we went to bed at 1 am,lance and the team on enchanter were close by and had an amazing night on the kings with one young fella landing a 42 kg fish.and at least another 20 big fish behind Enchanter.
We woke to a calm sea and off we went with a full tummy to the western end of the island.
The fishing was superb once again,3 fish on the 1st drift and fish on each consecutive drift.
The size was average (15 to 19kgs)
We persisted with a few more drifts with the best a fat 24kg fish to me and a real fat fish around the same to elpescador.

We made the call to head to the volkners and that was a bad call..the hot fishing of the day before was gone and the livies were untouched.
3drifts for no kings and we went back to the west end.
The fish were on the bite still and we hooked fish consistently every drift.
It was hard to get enthusiastic about these fish after the day befores insane fishing.
Day two gave us all another 6 or 7 fish over 15kgs and numerous rats that were easier to catch than the clap on waiheke.
We pulled the pin and went to the trench to catch a few gem fish and other bottom dwellers.The water was blue and a warm 20deg but not even an albie on the lures in 2 days.
We left the trench and headed home with smilies and a cold beer, reliving the memories of possibly the best days fishing kingies for us all.
The trip was fantastic with 4 PBS for the boys and im shure every one was happy as...

So as allways with my trips thier is acts of muppetry,here they are.

1, Zane the deckie jigging with the plastic tube on the assist hook
2,mikey cutting Elpescador off by not moving and a good fish lost with al throwing a tanty LOL

3,mikey drinking 24 gin and tonic 8% pre mixes,15 stienies and a 1/3 bottle of rum in 18 hours and still standing.....well sort of standing
4, mikey fishing with the rod in the gimble and harnessed in, getting smashed on the drop resulting in a birds nest which resulted in him getting pulled over the side with Elpescador grabbing his ankles as they went over the side..very lucky to be alive and if he was pissed he would of been dead if not for elpescador.
That about covers the muppetry for this year we can only hope things keep looking up and getting better.
My Dad was cremated today and personally it has been a struggle up unill today but im shure things will change when my boats back in the yard.

Heres a few more pics,
Mikey with his 2nd and last fish for two days fishing...".wheres the beers deckie im parched"

Des with his new pb of 24.5kgs,this fish fought very hard and Destroyed Des physically for some time..He was happy to sit and watch with a smoke and a beer.
You can see the conditions were tough ,alot of the fish had spawned and were very skinny.
The ones that hadnt spawned fought hard and were easy to pick with the fat condition they were in...We kept 9 kings for 6 of us,mostly fish around 20kgs and ones that looked to have spawned.Some were damaged or foul hooked and were kept as they were bound to die a slow death.
The bradley smoker will be running all week,thanks to a few tips from GAMFSH cheers Mark Clap

The fishing at white is nothing short of spectacular at the moment,1 boat went home early after the crew lost most of thier jigs.
Thier was another 40kg fish caught at club rocks on a popper this week and the fish thier seemingly impossible to stop.The hapuka fishing is going nuts in the trench with fish on the gambler to 29kgs and limiting out in a few hours 2 days in a row.The puka are full of jack mackeral.
The livies are easy to catch at the island and im shure thier will be some horses caught thier in the next few weeks.

So thats about it, Cheers Wayne