Checking new boxes

On Sunday 13^th June 2021 at 6:30am, Dave, Dale and I launched off of Wellington point. We headed across the bay, in what felt like sub zero temperatures, towards Amity Point. There was a bit of a swell, so crossing the bar was not as easy as my pervious trip, but we managed to get through without any issues.

We were hoping to catch a few end of season Spanish mackerel, so we stopped at a spot where Dale had caught live bait previously. It took some sounding around before I found the showing, but when I did, Dale and Dave both managed a few full strings of mackerel (slimies) and maasbanker (yakka).

We did not have a live well on the boat, so a coolerbox was filled with water to keep them going. It was a bit of a mission adding fresh water to the box, but it was part of the game.

We headed out to Sevens reef and rigged up 3 livies, two down deep and one on the surface. I rigged the surface bait on my trusty KP reel so I had to hold the rod while trolling.

The current was ripping north to south and there was a lot of slime in the water… never a great sign. Luckily the mackerel could handle the extra speed we needed to gain ground against the current and work the reef. After not seeing much on our first pass over the reef, Dale made a turn to approach from a different angle. We were in mid-turn when there was a splash on the surface where my livie should have been. Moments later I felt the weight on the line and I went tight with a fish. It didn’t take much line, so we kept the other lines out while I brought the fish in between the other lines. I could feel the continuous thumps in the rod indicating that it was a tuna species. A short while later, I had the fish at the boat where Dale gaffed my first Long Tail Tuna. Not a big fish by any stretch of the imagination, but a tick box none the less.

1st Longtail Tuna

With a fish in the boat, the monkey was off our back and we could relax a bit. Some of the baits were dying so we only had a limited number of mackerel left. We put on a fresh round of bait and made another turn. There was a bit of a showing on the bottom followed a short while later by a pull on the surface bait. The fish dropped the bait so I free spooled it back and went tight. This fish took a bit better run so we were hoping it was a Mackie, but those tell tail thumps on the rod suggested otherwise. It was with disappointment that we saw a big bonnie (mackerel tuna) next to the boat. It was unceremoniously released.

The rest of the morning was dead quiet so we opted to put out a few rapalas an troll around, just covering ground. We had gone a few hundred meters when the far lure went away with a smallish fish. Dave brought it in and just before we could see it, it went on a short erratic run followed by big head shakes, then just a heavy weight. It had been converted. We fought the shark for a while before breaking off.

The rest of the day was very quiet so we headed home at around 1pm. Thanks to Dave and Dale for a great day on the water a good laughs around the washbay.