This was my tenth Houhora One Base having missed only last year since 1999. There were some things the same and some different. 'Smooth Torquer' from Kawhia (they caught a marlin this year - very good as it is a long time between drinks for them) was still our neighbour at the Houhora Heads campsite as were the retired couple from Whangarei with the quad and the small Stabi. The Servo was giving away chocolate fish instead of watermelons. The numbers were down bigtime. It still knows how to blow dogs off chains when it feels like it and it still lets you get few days fishing in. Kaitaia still does not rival Milan as a shopping destination and there is still crap cellphone reception in the Far North (although it is not as bad as East Cape - at least there is a bit).
No, I like going to Houhora in mid March - it is like a comfy pair of slippers. I am no longer fired up by the competition side of things (vide supra ad nauseam) but I like being up there for a few days. I like being abused by Paul Batten as I get on the boat and as I get off. It would not be the same coming ashore in the evening with a 0-0-0 and not being told you are useless. The truth is often hard to take. I like having a brief (mainly) yarn with people I haven't seen since last year. The place would not be the same without the three men in a boat from the Bay of Plenty. I was much amused to see they brought a fourth this year - to make up a fourball at golf I was told. Hard case blokes these who don't mind a cold beer on a hot day.
I am an old bugger and I find change hard to deal with and so despite the tourney being reduced to four days I was going to fish the Saturday anyway 'cos that's wot I do. It also looked as Saturday was going to be the best day weather wise by the length of the straight. Thus I arrived on Friday afternoon to find Boulder sorting out more rods than Tazee has in his shop. So I added eight more to help him along. Driver Paul wasn't arriving until Saturday arvo and so Bouldie and I decided to have a go at this silly string nonsense.
We had worked out the mechanics of running lures and hookless lures in our heads and we just had to see if it would work in practice. A calm day was essential for our first foray into this we thought. I think we were right. Before we culd get all this sorted we had to go and catch a bait. Dead bait we thought because it would be easier for starters. All we could manage was a blue maomao; not blue maomaos - just the one. Well its may not be a koheru but it's a fish isn't it? She'll be right.
Right. Port teaser. What's missing in this picture?
We are fishing with Boulder, don't forget, so our teaser reels are top class. Big F. off Avet loaded with 130lb braid on a bent Unibutt. No messing about here. Line up to a roller troller at the lower halyard anchor point and out to a hookless Cleopatra skirted 'Rocket'. Big splashy lure that will stay on the surface.
Next rod is a TLD 25 spooled 15kg with a hooked Enki to LR.
Then the Tiagra 16 loaded with 10kg and a rigged maomao - well it's all we've got, innit - all ready to be thrown at something.
Continuing anticlockwise we have Boulder's Stella 20000 loaded with a jig (this is getting weirder and weirder) also to be thrown at things.
Something I understand next, a Piper on a 15kg to a TLD 30 at SR
And finally Boulder, smoking, smiling (all normal) and guarding an Avet T Rex running a very big articulated hookless Roddy Kona head without a hook (not normal)
Well we started dragging this lot around off Cape Karikari and it was a bit like walking down Queen Street with your flies undone. I'm sure everyone was looking and giggling. The lures ran like lures. The teasers made a hell of a kerfuffle on the surface (Boulder reckoned the Kona head looked like the fountain on Marine Parade in Napier). I practiced throwing the maomao at the teasers and got OK at it. Whether I could do it when in headless chicken mode was yet to be seen.
Right we're ready. Fish comes into the gear, he lights up, looks pretty, we say 'Look there's a marlin', stroke our chins and decide to wind the teasers up to the outriggers , clear the lures, then throw something attached to a line at the marlin. Or do we throw things then wind? Or do we shout at each other? Or do we both throw things (me the increasingly unappetizing dead fish and Bouldie the purple jig) at the same marlin at the same time as we haven't worked out who does what when. Who drives and where does he go? I don't think either of us really know what needs doing let alone in what order and who does what. She'll be right. Oh no she won't. We haven't got a clue.
All this remains academic as we fail to find a fish. But still, baby steps. The mechanics of running teasers seemed to work. I think we need at least two more pairs of arms and legs. Work in progress.
This was Saturday and we failed to find a fish. Come Wednesday and we still hadn't found a fish. Everyone else had but not us. We Weaseled, we thought, we asked questions, we went where people who caught fish went, we went where we thought we should go and found the top catching boat there, we went to good places and saw birds working and felt pleased with ourselves, we went close (100m off Karikari close) and we went wide (1000m outside the Garden Patch wide), we fished green water, we fished the best cobalt blue, we fished warm water, we fished Frostie the Snowman water. Still no bloody fish. We rang our 'unclean' bell as boats all around us hooked up. Driver Paul drove, Boulder and I made suggestions, some polite and some not. Still no fish.
Not strictly true we did catch fish. There was the blue maomao, a 2kg albie, two coke bottle skippies (the free sample coke bottle size), the world's smallest kingfish and a mahimahi. We looked up the comp weight limit for mahimahi. 4kg. This (taken on shotgun - bloody shotgun- on the Unicorn that last accounted for a 96kg stripey) would have done well to go 400gms. And there were marlin being caught all around us.
Oh and we bought things, I bought a new battery for the Jeep ('cos I had to) and a new pair of Crocs (this was on the 40 knot day) and Boulder bought a battery for his car key so he now has remote central locking (come to think of it I think I paid for that) and a another new rod. Well Kieron Olsen was there, and he was in our caravan for a couple of hours and the rod was red, and had a bent butt and was spiral wrapped and it was windy and what was Boulder supposed to do, tell him to take it away?
And still we caught no marloons whilst all around us were hooking up. Batten is right, I'm useless.
Not the point of course. I had a great time in the best possible company and I don't care if I'm useless.
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