Winners of the Tauranga Charter Boat Competition 2010
Day 1
We decided to get away early on Friday morning (2:00am), and make our way up to the Mercs for a change of scenery. So the first day was a nice early one, with marlin lures set by daybreak as we were rounding the Eastern side of Mayor island. A sight to behold!
We had nice conditions on the way up to the Mercs, which gave everybody a good chance to have a good feed, and started getting geared up for Hapuka fishing and jigging which was to come later in the day. The water was pretty cold (18.3 degrees) and the water wasnt looking particularly inspiring for gamefish. We managed some small albacore, and skipjack tuna on the handlines, but other than a nice patch of warm purple water to the West of Mayor, but we had a plan in mind so didnt bother working the area for any amount of time.
Next stop was some jigging at the aldermans, which only produced baracuda, so with a few hours steam up to the mercs, we decided to keep making our way up. Another uneventful troll up to the mercs, we made the call to give some puka fishing a go, and then onto straylining into the evening. With that in mind, we sent some good sized baits down onto some likely looking Hapuka marks. There were a few other boats in the area looking somewhat bored, not normally a good sign! Still we gave it another couple of drifts, from which, nothing of note was pulled up. By this stage straylining, and a beer tucked in behind the Mers was sounding like a better and better idea!
Within minutes of throwing some big juicy baits into the shallows, Wade had hooked up to a monster snapper. With 15kg mainline and 37kg trace he was able to pull the big fish out of the kelp on 3 separate occasions, only to have the rod explode into 3 pieces, just as we had colour at the boat, busting the line in the process. Needless to say, we heard allllllllll about it for the next couple of hours, and understandably so!
With that action fresh in the back of our minds, we carried on fishing into the evening shifting spots a couple of times, but ending up back at the same spot as earlier, with nothing more than a few pannies to show for our efforts.
Day 2
The call was made to troll our way back to Mayor, and get into some Hapuka fishing in some familiar water, as our options at the Mercs seemed to be dryng up, with a slow Hapuka bite, and no kingfish which were willing to bite a jig or bait.
We got a double hookup of nice albacore shortly after trolling alongside a pod of pilot whales for some time. These fish put up a good account for themselves, considering the heavy gear, but within a few minutes we had both fish onboard (2nd and 3rd!). Continued on our way out to some hapuka knolls to the east of Mayor.
This was another good move by Brett, as Tony ended up landing a 45kg bass off the second drift! Love it when a plan comes together. We got a couple more Hapuka and bass on the following drifts, nothing near the size of Tony's monster, but good eating fish none the less. Our drift changed, and we ended up getting onto some small bluenose, and gemfish, but couldnt get back onto the bass. After we all had caught enough for a couple of feeds, we had all decided to go and have a good rest at Mayor for the evening and make an early start on it the next day.
Day 3
Jigging and bottom fishing was the order of the day, as a couple of kingies would be great for the boat points for the competition, plus we all could use a good feed of tarakihi for the table!
Straight after breakfast we were tarakihi fishing off Tuhua, producing good numbers, of good sized tarakihi in short order. Plenty of double headers coming up round the boat, so it was smiles all round. After we all thought we had enough for a feed, and some good sized ones to weigh, it was time to get into some jigging.
Got to the first jigging spot, at which Dave hooked, and promptly lost a couple of kingies, this was just what we needed to keep enthusiasm up (jigging can be more demoralising than other sorts of fishing when your not catching, as its physically, HARD!). A couple of flying fish were dropped down as dead baits, and Tony ended up hooking a nice kingfish, which he dealt to in short order. Unfortunately, the fish was under the competitions minimum 100cm (94cm) but would make a nice smoked meal or two.
We perservered with the jigging for another hour or so, but decided it was time for a bit of look in the shallows. We were greeted by a couple of big schools of trevally, so we all had turns casting lures into the seething mass of fish, and all ended up with a few of these little scrappers each. Beautiful as raw fish, or smoked, and also conveniently in the competition!
Once we had enough trevally, we jigged the edges of the schools for kingfish, but apart from a couple of rats (small kingies) we didnt manage any more.
By this time the day was getting on and we had to be back to weigh in by 4:30, so we set the marlin gear, and trolled our way back to Tauranga, to weight our fish.
With the bass and Hapuka scoring us some good boat points, and plenty of the smaller species being prize contenders, we ended up taking out the competition, much to the delight of the skipper and crew!
We'll be back again next year defending our trophy!
 44.1kg of Hapuka! |  Blown Leatherjacket |  Tony and a munter spotted Gurnard |  Wade fighting his shark, haha |  |
 Mollymawks |  Stormy Petrels |  Des with a nice Gemfish |  Mayor Island |  Albacore lure |
 Plenty of birds around when we were getting the good drifts in |  Tony with his Puka |  Tony with his Puka |  Dave with a couple of good eaters. |  Tony with a nice Gemfish |
 Ben and Dinner! |  Tony and his 44.1kg Hapuka |  Tony with a hard fought Albacore |  Tony with a hard fought Albacore |  Wade with a nice albacore |
 Wade with a nice albacore |
