February started a bit quietly with a bit of sloppy weather,but picked up nicely in time for the Nauti Girls Competition out of Whangamata,so the 2 hell deckies Ben and Wade aka Goldielocks and Sookie la la and I headed up there on Friday to  pick up our crew.

In the finest tradition of the the comp, sobriety was the ultimate sin, and our crew were absolute angels in that regard, partying waaay into the small hours.

Still, all were up and into it at 1st light, and we had the outriggers up and lures in the water a couple of miles out. We picked up a few skippies on the way out to Mayor and did some laps around the northern end before deciding we'd better try a bit of bottom fishing to have something to weigh in.

We stopped at a mark where we've had a bit of luck with a few different species previously, and ended up doing quite well, with mainly tarakihi coming up. The snapper, trevally and kingies that we'd normally expect to see around Mayor seem to be a bit late showing up this year, still, no 2 years are ever identical.
After an hour or so, we headed back towards Whangamata, going around the S.W. corner, in about 80m, where there seemed to be more skippy action. It nearly paid off too, as we got a nice striped marlin checking out the lures, getting a bit bill wrapped with one of the traces and generally doing everything but getting hooked. Still, it was a good bit of action and converted a few of the "it's boring just watching lures" brigade to appreciating why it's worth the wait when you do get a game fish lit up and looking like it means business.

So, back to Whanga and everyone bailed to get their fish weighed, and, more importantly, get their gear on for the team costumes competition.

Which they won hands down, with the most surreal looking marlin ever seen. A lot of work went into it, and it was a well deserved win.

Caroline, Amanda and Claire also got 1st, 2nd and 3rd respectively in the tarakihi section, all in all, a pretty good result for a great team. 

There were 4 marlin landed or tagged and released, with a 274kg blue taking 1st prize, a very good fish in any comp.

The Nauti Girls is one of the the most enjoyable contests around, and with nearly 900 entries, one of the largest, I hope we're in it again next year.

Wade abandoned ship to help the team party in the manner that the victory deserved, so it was Ben and me who steamed reluctantly back to Tauranga, as we had a day trip on the Sunday.

The rest of Feb. was a bit of an anticlimax really, the day fishing was still good, mainly tarakihi, quite a few small kingies, and some snapper and trevally ,but still not as many as we'd normally see at this time of year. I think the amount of food in the water had some bearing on this, as most of the fish we were catching were full of krill and it was noticeable that the feeding times were a lot shorter than had beeen the case earlier in the season.