I didnt go out as I hoped to on saturday because it was a tad windy so went out Sunday for a practice fish for the forum challenge.

Just went to my usual spot , went right past a small flotilla of boats fishing in 5m just off Matakawau. The boats stayed there a while so i guessed they were catching.

We started getting gurnard straight away, then they stopped after an hour or so, but we were getting plagued by little kahawai, which in turned disappeared whenm the burley ran out.... funny that.

We moved into the middle of the channel after the  tide mostly stopped and drifted through there picking up a couple of reasonable fish before heading home. In all we caught about 20 or so keeping 12 good ones. Three were just under a kilo and one went over so was a good catch.

The biggest fish had snaffled a little kahawai frame before getting hooked, we just filleted one of the little buggers to try for bait, and thrown the frame over, would have thought it too big for a gurnard to take.

One of the other large gurnard had a whole fish in it's gut, looked like a sandfish but was kind of digested. Sandfish look like a little dogfish and are about the size of a pilchard. Hmmmm live baiting for gurnard maybe??? The rest of the gurnard had been feeding on crabs, shrimps and flounder.

The other interesting thing was the catch rate on light gear, we had 5 rods out in total - all rigged the same - 15kg (for the giant gurnard) it took 1 gurnard, 10 kg - zip, 8 kg managed 2, 3 kg and 2kg rods took the rest. Kind of convincing dont you think? so was a good day in all. Best bait was mullet.

Ty Lethal, plenty more out there I am sure.

Some pics ...

http://www.momentoffame.com/snapshot.html?id=89066

http://www.momentoffame.com/snapshot.html?id=89067

http://www.momentoffame.com/snapshot.html?id=89065

Smudges photo's

Thanks Bushie.

Money where your mouth is Tobes....

Good luck Grounded.

nice Gurnard Smudge...... i just hope you havent done your dash for when it really counts........

Arhhh our mate Smudgey is peaking right on time.

Good result mate, this has made you a clear favourite in my books. Put pay to the doubters brother!!

Went after a Grunter or two yesterday, with my daughter and her friend on board. 11am on the water, outgoing tide, glassy calm and all was well with the world. 12 noon easterly blowing like 10,000 devils and we were all over the place. Then a motor would not start (electrical fault I think) and a real tricky boat retrieval because of wind and tide.

All in all, a bugger of a trip. and no fish. Just a crab.

Chris