Holiday weekend I

Labour weekend is normally quite a nice time to be around town, as people head off to the beaches in droves so things are pretty quiet generally for us non-beach house owners. I'd earmarked Sunday as a fishing day as the forecast had called it for lightish wind all week. I was up at 4am for a bait & berley mission, to see if I could emulate or improve on my success of the previous weekend (I'd had snapper for lunch every day last week). I ran straight into the spot where the fish had come on the bite last week, a rocky outcrop with a gutter that heads out into deeper water. The difference was that this time I'd be fishing the incoming tide ... and I'd not really thought about how that would affect the spot. Whereas last week I'd caught half a dozen fish to 50cm, this time the current dragged my rig into the foul constantly. I re-positioned to get my berley flowing into the gut and was rewarded with a nice 38cm snapper before the breeze came up - stronger than expected. It was pretty chilly too, with the wind and overcast sky combining to make me think about packing it in. Instead, having lost at least a dozen hooks and swivels I decided to find shelter so drove around to Administration Bay where I tucked into the rocks.... when I say "drove" I mean I first had to retrieve a well fouled anchor which only came back once the shaft was bent 30 degrees... sheeeet. Anyway, at Admin Bay I sounded a ton of bait so set about catching a livie to snag a john dory... first up was a common sprat which went back down on a circle hook. Not a minute later the rod nodded over and I gently brought up what would prove to be a nice johnny. The sprat was gone so I couldn't re-use it (I've caught 3 johhnys on one livie before) and buggered if I could catch another. I steeled myself for a spine pancaking trip home and decided to use the following sea to round Motutapu and come in through Motuihe Channel. Dumb dumb dumb... no reprieve there in fact the wind seemed stronger and that channel is a plain 5hit with wind against tide. I beat the living crap out of myself getting though so by the time I'd circumnavigated Rangitoto and headed into a horrible quartering sea back up to my launch spot at Castor Bay I was pretty well over it.

John dory is one of my favourite eating fish so at least that worked out.

All mouth, no trousers