I thought I saw you going down Delaware Bay road from the hill top me n the dog were "inspecting" :D
Well done
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I thought I saw you going down Delaware Bay road from the hill top me n the dog were "inspecting" :D
Well done
All I will say is dont go diving with a boatman that throws your gear at you……as it seems to sink and is hard to find :ORLY:
Then when you request the location of your local cray hole he waves a hand and points into the sun and says over there …but the diving gods blessed me and I found a few handy crays.
The water is almost to warm but the clearest I’ve seen in years, the undersize crays are moulting and I’ve never seen so many, but the keepers are pretty cagey tucked well back in the holes and caves.
Another wonder afternoon / evening doing what I really love, underwater !
Managed a feed , tits up a couple of sitters , chased the big buck rather than take the keeper…all in all a pretty amateurish effort on my behalf ….hope VC will take me out again…please
:D Good stuff @stingray.
Keep it up VC. Keep him on his toes :thumbsup:
Another nice land based trevally on a soft bait. $80K on a boat was wasted!
https://i.ibb.co/WWxfksn/Fishing-Trevally1.jpg
Thanks Stingray and VC for gift of the cray, it went down a treat. Nice to catch up and let my mad dogs go swimming...
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Took a neighbour out round Pelorus Western entrance to share my limited knowledge on how to soft bait and bugger me the first fish he gets weighed 6kg !
I think he is off to the tackle shop to get some light weight soft baiting gear
[ATTACH]241974[/ATTACH Neighbour and I got these Thursday after a couple of hours around / under big workups you could hear the noise of fish splashing from 100’s of m away.
Targeting snapper with soft bait and lures outer sound has been very productive this xmas holiday- 16 over the month we have been here in the Pelorus. We would stop fishing when we felt we had enough - released a few this year 1st been able to do that.
Fishing inner sound for snaps this year didn’t get one - spikey dogs or barracuda only. Water temp colder than normal only 19/20 at jetty normally 22/23. Zero work ups inner sound this year hardly any birds compared to most years - very noticeable hopefully the bait fish and birds turn up Feb/March.
Home tomorrow to earn the crust but back for easter
Saw a deer when out walking yesterday the first for me in the 52 years of coming here numbers must be getting up if I can bump into one middle of the day.
Well I still haven't figured out fishing in Cable bay, 6hrs on the water for one size Gurnard and one large kahawai lost yak side.
Fished in close, out in middle of the bay, drifted, out from point, had big schools of kahawai and birds working all around me and couldn't get a take, tried large chrome right down to 15g fleas.. Whatever they were eating didn't match my lures. I know Stringray. I should have used bait..
Definitely spent more calories than fish caught, the Gurnard made for a nice late lunch salad wrap. The worst day of fishing beats the best day of work, whatever that is.. lovely part of the coast line and the early morning fog, rain and sunshine made for a nice day out regardless.
Cheers FBD
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What I saw when diving out there was smelt or something similar, 2 inch long 5mill deep and a couple hundred thousand in a school, yes I took the time to count them! :wtfsmilie:
From the surface to 10 ft down I’m pretty sure this is what’s the tern’s are eating as the Kahawai murder them from below!
Perhaps a low tide mission and harvest some kina..to crack and create a cheap burley trail..I know kayaks have very little room but 20 odd of the local variety would take up a lot of room
Trip report…VC & VC jnr picked me up at 6 on Saturday morning loaded to then gunnels with camping gear boat wetsuits etc! I added to the pile some more gear and a couple of tanks and we set sail for Kaikoura.
Left home in pissing down rain, which we enjoyed right through to the other side of Havelock, it eased and cleared away and the sun burnt away the remaining clouds as we hit the coast, the water was blue in parts of the coast that that are always always milky and rubbish.
We were fizzing a slight swell and blue water…got to Kaikoura , out of the truck into wetsuits into the boat and off to get amoungst it. South had a meter of swell pushing but we found a bay to tuck up in and into the water, VC headed in close looking for butters whilst Jnr had a shit of a time being a seal magnet …they wouldn’t leave him alone, and the poor bugger abandoned the dive “ one seal I can handle but two in my face is way to many”
I had look around but the spot was a bust even for VC who saw some huge butters either on the end of his breath or right in his face after looking in a crack for a cray.
So we changed locations and headed for @Munsey rock, a productive spot that hold a few fish, tanked up hit the cracks …to a ghost town… clear 5 meter vis and nothing to see damn near broke my heart. A big school of blue moki lighten my mood and I followed them to another crack …feelers and small crays ..looked at them and took the biggest , next hole the same ..great vis but few crays ..back in the boat ran them over the lie detector 1 mill under , 2 mill undersize VC ruthlessly chucked my catch over the side muttering ……” you had one job” …
With the days tank we headed south in search of tea of some sort …I resorted to free diving which has being quite a while and it showed, Jnr jumped in and 10 mins later was back in the boat, the half grown seals just loved him , never came near me and VC but Jnr vc poor barstard …they wanted him bad.
We found a handy few gutters of xxl pāua and noted them for the next opening. Then we ran out of puff ( I’d run out ages ago) VC put in some serious miles and pulled the pin.
Got to the grocery store for some snacking tucker and a box , headed for Peketa camp , ( which is threatened with closure) to find it full of folks loving this precious camp ground..support it on line please..honestly it even a long weekend and the place would have had easily 600 souls on board, little folks , old folks young families and us.
We found a shady spot in the tent block set up and cracked a coldie, next minute @Munsey rolls up ( a huge and very welcome surprise) and the yarns began!
Then the eating began mussels olives mutton chops venison cutlets all well enjoyed.
We wandered off to bed early ish and we were awoken to the sweet gentle bird song of the fucking rooster across the the road!
He gave it to it for and hour …before he decided he’d woken the neighbourhood up, so coffee and then even more food bacon eggs mushrooms sausages and a wonderful pound of whitebait cooked and throughly enjoyed.
Given the results of the Saturday mission , and that Jnr had work Sunday arvo, I geared up and we boated back out into the deep blue , I chatted with a bloke from ch - ch as I wandered back from the trailer park , they were suffering the same problems marginal crays all summer .
So VC and I devised a cunning plan and found a patch of reef well away from any cray pots or boaties…hit the bottom to flat rocks with no turf ..swam and swam today water temp was cold almost chilly…finally found some turf and onto the crays took only the biggest left dozens and dozens of smalls.
Found 3 cray pots 2 were wrecks and the third I thought was someone’s as the rope was quite clean, finished my dive to realise there we still no pots around and it would have being a keeper. Back in the boat I measured and chucked back my whole catch all females all just undersize ..
Whilst the diving was rubbish catch wise but wonderful vis …it was a tremendously enjoyable trip away to an absolutely beautiful part of NZ.
Thanks VC and munsey and Jnr what a weekend of diving food and just good times …cheers!
What’s more fun than catching kahawai on light gear at the river mouth? Watching your son do it.
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@stingray on day 2
I also saw a humongous ray of some sort cruise past while diving on the Saturday. It looked to be as wide as a dingy.
Well when you had a tough weekend on the fish and then you recieve these photos...bloody proud of them but it hurts just a little bit more
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Yes a small snapper / brim but for south island spearos that and a JD some real trophies
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Just before it absolutely pissed down, Bowentown
Caught this little fellow today. First on I have got on a slow jig.
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Aren’t they a beautiful fish!
Might be worth live baiting in the area you got that one. Such great eating !
Yeah. We were on our way back to Kaiuma bay and it was the first time I had dropped a line in that spot. Pretty sure I hooked another one too but dropped it. I might modify one of the slow jigs and put some bigger hooks on.
Got one on a soft bait once but reckon that was a fluke.
Live baiting for kingies with weight holding the bait on the bottom has produce zero kings but a few JD.
Then there the ones when bait fishing u get them in the boat and the baby snapper who been hammering your bait falls out of the JD’s gob
I have caught them on soft baits before too but you are right, live baits are the go. It's just a bit more dicking around. Especially if you are drift fishing like I normally do.
Same I drift fish most of time too. At long last got a boat with an anchor winch but I am paranoid about hooking up to the bottom on rocky areas, so hardly used it lol
Yes that works- when I lived in Wellington I learnt the hard way when fishing the south coast where the combination of wind and tide has your anchor rope so taught u could walk down it.
The beauty of the grapnel is if it gets stuck u just loop the rope round a cleat at the stern drive forward and up she comes! Then all u do is straighten out the bent prong - needs to be made from reo bar though.
He didn't make it....
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Just kidding, I found this huge one out at Okiwi a couple of months back
Attachment 242994 like this one sharps???
Someday I’m gonna go fishing a lot in these beautiful waters that surround us!! I’m getting close to actually going for a fish here soon. I do I’d love to go on a kingi jigging trip, like a legit hunt, multi day or whatever the usual big trip is, have gas $ and jigs and stories and lies galore. I like the idea of reading structure and birds and surface and flows and seams and currents and all that stuff. I guarantee that I’m about the worst jigger in the country but that only leaves room for improvement :)
I do have a lot of jigs though, I’m super keen to try these “Tuna Killer” jigs as they have an off edge on em that makes them dart randomly…hell if I know but it could work.
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Barracouta will love them too:)
Those jigs will work just fine, at least in the upper north island (I can't speak for other areas of the country). You'll be able to catch more or less everything you'd want to catch with them. As for barracouta, a short kevlar or wire leader will prevent excessive jig losses and I doubt it would reduce your catch rate of desirable species too much.
My word Jo, do you have a good therapist for that jig addiction of yours? Bloody hell fellahs take this man and score him a King Fish.