No pictures? Then it didn’t happen…

Actually it did happen, but I didn’t bother to drag the camera out at all. With a reasonable forecast (a bit of SW wind), a sheltered bay, an early incoming tide and reports of reasonable fish around it seemed a good excuse to have a dirty old bait & burley session. Quick text to Tony and he was in. Plan - launch 5.30am, head out to reef, burley up hard on the incoming and fish back into the structure. A hoard of kayak anglers were on the water as I arrived and prepped the boat before dropping her in at almost dead low tide; and another boat had just launched. Could be busy out there! Tony arrived and we loaded his gear in then got up and went… the slight breeze was coming from NE so it was warm, but we knew it wasn’t going to last. We arrived at the reef and chugged around – out here the breeze was as forecast which made getting wind and tide aligned a bit tricky, so we had more than one go at getting the lie right. Then, burley tied on and first bait in – while I messed around something picked up the bait and reefed me… not cool. We fished pretty intensively before the first keepable fish came aboard, a nice little trevally, which was destined for sashimi. A rat kingi played around in the burley trail and stayed for most of the morning; chasing small snaps as we brought them aboard. He later scoffed one that Tony threw back... Then a dark kelp snapper came up. Finally a whole baby squid was taken and the fish (we called it for a kingi) tore out towards the horsizon before doubling back and tearing into the kelp. I could feel the 6kg braid sawing through kelp and thought there was a chance… until the hook pulled. After that we fished patiently until 9.30 am when the bite really started (this spot looks to fish better as the tide covers the reef) and we had a good run, keeping only fish well over the legal size. The best came as I’d re-rigged, cast a whole pillie into the wash and was settling back when the bait was smashed, the fish tore line from the little Twin Power which screamed. A nice 3kg fish surfaced. The terrain was challenging which kept the fishing interesting and we nattered about all sorts of crap (duck calls, ducklings, pheasants, geese, fish..) - by 11 we’d used our bait supply up so called it. Back on shore the kayak fleet were in; we had a coldie each, divied the fish and hit the road. On a sunny day after a fishing trip the NZ countryside is just an amazing place. I can’t imagine living anywhere else, we really don’t know how lucky we are.