BOI – New Years Eve Hapuka - 31-DEC-2003
A 5am start is not as easy as it sounds when you have been “Relaxing” at the beach for a day or two, but with the thought of big fish in my head I managed to drag myself out of bed and stagger next door to find the boys already had the Tristram 690 Millennium packed and are ready to go.
We climbed on board the boat and started driving off down the road towards the ramp only to find that some idiot has parked their car in the middle of the road and we can’t get the boat past…must have been a good party…after some skillful maneuvering we finally got past and were once again on our way to the ramp. Launching this boat at the Russell ramp is a breeze and we are soon heading over the Pihia to pick up our skipper for the day. He arrived suitably late (BOI time) and we are soon on our way again but not before a quick stop to pick up the live bait. The boys had been out the day before and caught a dozen or so which were kept alive over-night in a floating live bait tank. A short stop in the channel on the way out of the harbor saw few more livies in the tank (large plastic rubbish bin).
We stopped on the way out to check the Cray pots the boys had put down the day before. They had dived here a few days earlier and collected a couple of nice crays and seen a lot more and I had caught a nice snapper while “watching the boat” so we were expecting to see a few in the pots...but it was not to be, both the pots were empty.
The hole in the rock - Cape Brett
Next stop was Bird Rock to try for a few kingies. Speed jigging was the method chosen and the skipper soon put us over a school of fish and the first few drops soon drew the kings to the surface. If you have never tried speed jigging before and need good arm workout this is the method for you. It is a basic technique, you simply drop you jig to the bottom then wind like stink and see if you can stop just before the jig smashes through the surface and smashes you rod tip off. Before too long we had our first hookup and the fight was on, this fight lasted only a few minutes until the fish decided it no longer wanted to play and broke off in the weeds. The second hookup did the same. My arm was dead so I decided to jig just under the boat …Kingies were everywhere…suddenly one appeared from the depths grabbed my jig and disappeared, line peeled from the screaming real and this fish put on quite a fight. After 15 minutes the fish was at the boat, not a large fist but it was foul hooked thought the dorsal fin so fought a lot harder than usual. I always prefer to catch fish the hard way! Enough fun and games, it was time to do some real work. We released the kingfish and headed out past Cape Brett and the Hole in The Rock to find what we were out here for…HAPUKA.
nice puka Tony!
There was a gentle swell of about a foot or so, no wind, glassy surface and perfect clear sky…what a fantastic day to be out on the water. We motored out into the deep blue for about an hour then the skipper announced we were over the rock. The rods were already rigged and were soon baited with a livies and large chunk of bait and were over the side for our first drift. In this depth of water (200+mtrs) it takes a few minutes for the baits to hit the bottom, and you can certainly wear out you arms and back winding them back in. The first drop produced one nice Hapuka. We managed to get a dozen or so drops in before we ran out of livies. Each time we had a strike the skipper would mark it on the chart plotter so we could position the boat over the same spot again. A good sounder and chart plotter is essential equipment for this type of fishing. I all we managed three nice sized puka and 3 seven gill sharks.
Getting tired yet Tony?
On the last retrieve kirks line was behaving very strangely… first he was hooked up, then nothing…then he was hooked up again…then nothing…when he got the hooks to the surface…no bait…then out of the depths we saw it .. a mako of about 200kgs following the line up…it circled the boat a few times then eat the sinker of Kirks line. Our plans to trawl for tuna were quickly changed. We gutted a Hapuka to feed the Mako while as Tony rigged up his 15kg outfit to have a play with this beat from the deep…a few minutes later we were ready to rock…but were was the Mako? We drifted for about 15 minutes, throwing Hapuka guts out all look ancously into the deep blue for the monster to return. Then suddenly there it was, Tony dispatched the bait, the Mako decided it would join in and play our game and it was all on…the real screamed and the line disappeared into the depths. The line angle suddenly changed, it was coming up, then in the distance the sight of the Mako leaping out of the water. This was truly a magnificent sight and would be the last time we saw the Make for over an hour. We chased the fish around the deep blue for over an hour before we finally got it back to the boat. Now what? We weren’t prepared for a fish of this size and didn’t have a flying gaff, or much of anything really. A plan was quickly formulated which sounded more like something you would see on a western movie. It involved attempting to lasso the beast with a nine meter rope then dragging it backwards by attaching the other end of the rope to the ski pole and preying it didn’t get ripped out of the boat! With the mako at the side of the boat an attempt was being made to get it in close enough to get the rope around it. The fish looked up at us, gave a wink then turned and cruised under the boat, once around the outboard and was gone. All we were left with was one very tired and frustrated angler.
Cleaning fish at speed
The trip home saw the skipper and Tony cleaning the fish while the rest of us enjoyed the high speed burn back to the ramp.
There would be Puka on the barbeque for new years eve.