Got up early on Friday, not much new about that. Drove to Paeroa and stopped in to see the folks, have a bite and then down town (hahahahaaa this is Paeroa) to look at the boat the old man is interested in. 5m cuddy type boat, nicely constructed, no frills. Seems to me to be a bit heavy and unwieldy for swamp work but he seems to want it. Definitely a better ocean going boat than the Rusty Rocket but with only a 70 horse on its bum will be moderately powered, hardly exciting. Then on the road again, through to Waihi stopping in to check a few pools on the Ohinemuri. Saw a small 'bow on the feed and a brownie tucked away down deep in a big pool. Moving on to Tauranga, been a while between visits so its always nice to arrive in one of my favourite places. Nik arrived soon after I got there, so we decided to go down to Sulpher Park Marina and see if we could see the mullet swimming around - oh yeah! Quickly hatched a plan to kid myself even further that I could take one on fly, I've put a whole bunch of time and effort into this passtime, never with great results (I once caught one on a silicon smelt, but wasn't fishing for them so can only count as accidental by-catch). Backing up a bit, we spent some time walking around looking at boats of various shapes and sizes, and the occasional mullet put in an appearance. At the northern end we began to find them in shoals so biffed in couple of handfuls of crushed pipi shells which didn't unduly disturb them; nor excite them greatly. They swam in circles like tarpon, or aligned like fighter jets swooping the bottom of the marina, we could see the disturbed mud billowing up. Then swimming to the surface they would expel mud from their gills, jettisoning the waste they had picked up. In places we watched one or two with their faces jammed on the bottom, tails up in the water column. This behaviour reminds me a lot of the mullet in Milford Marina, same action, same impossible to catch behaviours. Same 'go on have a shot' attitude.
So have a shot I did, first with a bread fly that I tied exactly for this situation. Not having any bread for burley was probably not the best strategy, but heck. I got in a dozen shots of good or ok quality, but nope. Couldn't get any interest. Switching to a BMS (Bullen Merrey Special [sp]) one of Muz Wilsons weed-type-dragon-fly-larvae-type whatever the fish mistakes it for flies got equal response.
Then out of the 'depths' of the marina came a short tailed sting ray of impressive size, On a 6 weight? Of course you have to try these things.
Ok so I'm actually a tad relieved that it didn't scoop up the fly which bounced over its snout because quite frankly exploding fly rods and destroyed reels and frayed fly lines aren't very special experiences.
After a bite at a cafe we headed back home to set up the boat, some rods, lines etc. Simon and his mate Greig arrive in a flurry of hand shakes, man-hugs and tackle. All of a sudden boxes of flies are produced, along with reels, rods and the realisation that we're going to have to leave some stuff at home. So we settle on Si's 11 Xi2, 9 Scott STS, 9 Zed and my Xi2 8 and CTS 12. Eventually we hook up the boat to the prado and head off. Nik complains about how busy the ramp is - we had 3 lanes/ramps to choose from! Okahu Bay in a holiday means a 45 minute wait at busy times so I could see no reason to complain!!! Soon we're heading out on mild seas with a slight SE wind so boom our way across to Mayor and Tuhua Reef. No one's there. No sooner had we deployed the anchor than Nik's heaving a popper which is monstered by large kahawai and some kings in the 10 - 20 kg class. With constant wind, sighting fish is difficult but we begin to hook stuff. Chu's on the board first.
Grieg's challenged by all the normal stuff - strip striking, kingi jitters and casting the 12 but gets on top of it quickly and is soon throwing a nice long line. He misses a few takes and I develop dropsies in a big way, hooking up but losing fish through a bunch of stuff, even giving them lots of slack so the hook falls out. Then suddenly its all dead. Nothing in the burley. We've not managed a trev (although I had thought I'd struck one before it spat the fly), although Si has got a snap aboard. So we up anchor and head across to Penguin in sloppy but not totally unpleasant seas. Only one other boat out there but yes! A huge foaming krilling school of trevors is up on the top. We've got about an hour of good light left so waste no time in positioning Si and Grieg. Grieg's in first with a chunky fish, the belly on this thing is rotund.
Simon's krill fly is doing the damage and he's soon in to a fish. I'm dragging a crease fly through the densely packed fish and the ones I'm hooking are most likely fouled so I give it away in favour of the krill fly and boat a few. Grieg's taking his share and so's Si, and the suddenly its getting hard to see the fish and they're down as the sounder reveals.
We're on our way back in semi darkness and the full moon is shining brightly in our boat wake. A couple of beers, a venison and rice dinner and its 11.30 before we hit the hay.
Good times.
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