Dave Tagit had assembled a finely tuned team of Mahimen for the trip. Him himself in the big comfy seat upstairs, Boulder to supply all manner of unheard of and eye wateringly expensive tackle from Japan, The booze peddler, Paul, to net skippies and knock up roast meals and yours truly to drink cups of Lady Grey and pretend he was really practiced at pitch baiting - not.
Left Westhaven on time at 0900 on Friday with plans to put the anchor down in Whangaroa that night. Despite oily calm seas this destination changed to the back of Roberton and eventually Whangamumu as the day wore on. Had a couple of 12 Pipers on the corners and a Unicorn (I can't remember where we ran that) as we steamed at 16 knots past the Mokes. Somewhere at the back of the Knights the Unicorn produced a couple of our main quarry. The biggest one for Paul and the tiddler for me. Paul's is lying quietly on the deck because it is dead and mine is going mental because it is not dead and that's what they do. We later had one tailwalking in the bait tank - good trick.
Next day dawns and the 'quick catch a few livies session' not all that flash so we decide to troll four hooked lures (and the Unicorn in the position that escapes me) until we can get a few skippies and revert to the real plan. 24kg sets on the corners and 15kg on the riggers. All drags tested? Sure they are. Well four of the five are. Big hit on SR and then nuffink. Line snapped. This is not a good look. The drag setting had escaped the eagle eye of the bloke setting the lures (me) and tested at far too much. I don't do things like this. I am fussy. Well not bloody fussy enough in my fussyness obviously. Never mind. Worse things happen at sea. Oh, we are at sea......
Catching skippies. You don't want pictures of this do you? We all know how to catch skippies. A policeman could do it. If you have Boulder on the boat then you are in for a serious rethink of how you catch skippies. Forget bungies, planing boards and Smith's jigs. No, what you need is $1500 worth of kit. You start with one of those as yet unheard of and eye wateringly expensive Japanese reels loaded with that pretty multi coloured braid and you mount this on a red acid wrapped bent butt (yes, campers, bent butt) rod with leopard skin print grips from Karikari to a purple jet head run behind a trolling weight. This is the flashest looking Skippie rig in the Southern hemisphere. But believe me it is bloody effective. I reckon he of the 'orrible 'at wouldn't have dropped more than two skippies all week. That is one of the great things about fishing with the Large Stone he does things properly. No bits of string and bent pins for this tackle meister.
OK we are ready to start catching bycatch now. Tuna tubes loaded and a few livies in the bait tank. The 15kg sets are bought in and the hooks are taken out of the lures. One 15kg rod and my new 10kg set are armed with circle hooks and put ready in the arms of the chair. The now hookless lures are run out of the riggers from reels clamped to the rail on the aft end of the flybridge. Here fishy, fishy.
Well let us settle down for a minute, please. I was just letting the SR teaser out (Lumo Sprocket) and there is a marlin right behind it. The damned lure has hardly got wet. Tagit plays tug of war with the fish from the flybridge and I race downstairs and rig a livie but big fishy has lost interest in the Sprocket we can't see it any more. No idea where to pitch anything let alone a bait so we don't. Fishy gives the Unicorn (fish just won't stop playing with this) a nudgette and he's gone. Rumblings from someone that had we had hooks in the lure we would have caught Mr Marlin. But that really is not the point.
That was it on the marloon front for us. Spent the next two nights anchored in different bays of Whangaroa Harbour - hell it really is a neat place - and Paul's dive failed to garner any scollies despite two or three attempts. Went to the Garden Patch for a day in some really quite snotty weather as we heard tell of some decent fish and a yellow fin (remember them) being caught there. That was the Sunday I think.
Weather reports started to get quite insistent that it was going to blow 35 knots SE on Wednesday and that is not the wind you want for a trip back down the coast. We consequently placed ourselves back in Tutukaka Marina for Monday night that we might motor back to Auckland on Tuesday (a day earlier than planned) when all this windy unpleasantness was slated to start. Nothing wrong with Toots Marina (or any other marina come to that) but give me waking up in a secluded bay every time.
We sent Diver Paul (as opposed to Driver Paul) to blow bubbles and fail to find scollops or crays just out from Toots harbour before trolling until the weather went tits up and we had to steam into the snot. Never happened. Oily calm all day. Trolled towards the prospect of some good looking water on the Bream Knolls if the Weasel was to be believed. Well of course he is to be believed and the water was cracker. Contained no marlin but that doesn't matter as we are after mahi mahi, aren't we? What we need is a FAD and what is that over there in 173m of water? Half a dozen empty plastic containers are not tied together in the middle in the middle of nowhere for no reason. Mahi mahi and rat (no, mouse) kings for Africa.
Boulder is most insistent that I post this picture so I will.
No big deal I say; I repeated the feat just few minutes later.
At the Bream Knolls a hapuka catching contest had been organised by them downstairs whilst I was drinking Lady Grey and driving. I was to fish smelly baits and the rest were to do wiggly whack. Of all the new and deviant paths Boulder has led me along recently, dropping a pound of lead off a 50w all harnessed up like you were going real fishing is not something I will be queuing up to do again. I would have had more fun spending an hour sticking pins in my eyes. If you are even remotely interested in the result of the hapuka contest, it was a no score draw.
Heaps of wind has still not arrived but it will on Wednesday (honest) and so we decide on getting back to Auckland on Tuesday night. Steam through the Mokes and then a most pleasant night passage from about Cape Rodney into Westhaven. Using the 'runway' into the harbour at night is really quite fun.
Great trip. Company, as usual, is the key and Tagit can certainly put a compatible crew together. If you are baled up on a 43 foot boat with three other blokes for five days something has to be right if you are not to come to blows and never a cross word was uttered. This to me gives much more enjoyment than catching a shedful of fish with a bunch of grumpy buggers for company. Great boat, great company, mostly great weather and five days off one of the best coastlines around; bliss
Oh, and watch out for the coming of The Stoat...........
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