My brother Simon and I have just arrived back from 3x days at Great Barrier Island fishing (and a day in the Hauraki Gulf). We had a fantastic time, caught plenty and experienced a few good boating lessons.
One of these was starting to cross the Colville Channel. It was probably looking like 1.5m short pitch swell with 20 knot winds. Pretty rough and messy… As soon as we started the crossing the wipers died. So We had to do the 15km crossing getting close to dusk, in rough water, nearly blind with Simon looking out the side window to navigate. Fun times!
I lost a huge Kingfish (Over a metre) which we saw jump out. It cut my 50lb leader clean. We trolled for game fish up the top of Barrier, close to the Needles. Nothing took, but it was only 19.8 degrees water temp so a little cool.
Evenings were relaxing, with good shelter in Port Fitzroy each night and one night in Matiatia. We did some bombs off the roof of the boat and had a swim in the bay what was awesome fun.
Simon was the cook, and I was the chauffeur and gear sorter. Still need to break in the Marlin rod, but there’s plenty of time for that! We’ll have to think about ‘Bro Trip 2014!’…
Here’s the pics!
This is us game trolling off the north west side (top) of Barrier. Was pretty rough and windy out there but the boat handled it like a dream. Nothing took, but still fun.
Simon relaxing. Looks like hard work eh!
Filling up at Port Fitzroy. Expensive gas, but friendly people!
Check out the Wrass I caught! This looks small but put up a huge fight!
Plenty of reef fish on the dinner menu!
This is about as far up as we went. It was fairly rough up the top. Quite fun in the boat, but good for building experience!
A days snapper, ready to fillet!
The chef preparing fresh snapper sandwiches for dinner!
4x snapper on one drop! Go Me!
Just a wee experiment. Wire trace and a bonito head. Didn’t work, but worth a try!
Si showing how to catch snapper by the tail!
This morning we got into some nice workups west of Waiheke. Picked up about 6x Kahawai!
And here’s the haul! We’ve split the feed and will be eating fish for some time!
And of course I have to share some photos from the new GoPro camera!
Here’s some Vids!
