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This time last year Aussie brothers Garry and Les came over to tustle with our kings and snapper, and some of you might remember the epic battle Gary had for 7 hours with a 400kg Mako on a Stella 20000.
The guys loved Tairua and had a choice time fishing and so re - booked for the same week this year and arrived amped to do battle with some monsters. Two of the fellas from last year had family committments brother Mick and mate Dave made up the crew. Gary made me promise no funny 7 hour battles this time. We had a week of sweeeeet weather ahead, heres a few of the better pics from the week and a quick report
Dave taking it all in, hows the serenity
Conditions like this most of the week
Dave with a solid battle scarred king on Day One at the G Spot
Mick was a bit flabbergasted at his first king, an awesome effort mate!
The Shark Man with a solid fish minus its tail, fellas had one for tucker for the week....
Dave with another fattie from Day One, he got stuck into them
And another, in fact he dominated proceedings getting the line share of them the first day
Les stoked with the first fat fish on Day Two on a livebait
As per this time last year the Makos were around in plague proportions chomping a few kings through the week too
The smile had something to do with getting one past Mr Mako....
Thats more like it Gazza, a 20K from the G spot
Time to knock one over on the Jig, Broken Arrow 300gm blue on the Jig Star Kojak spin
Les with a solid beast, stoked
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And Les cracks another munter of a fish from the G Spot
Want another drop Les? Try this rod, its got heaps of grunt........
Arms starting to cave in now.....
Dave cracks into the action with a nice one on the 200 JM Three kings and PE 5
After some solid fish earlier in the week Mick spent a fair bit of time chillin and watching the boys get dealt to, he stretched the arms out every so often and then spent the rest of the time buzzing and what a cool playground we've got
Gazza with another beast
Gazza recpatures one we tagged two years ago, we re-released it, in very good knick it was too
By this stage the boys arms were getting pretty tired, and the boys suggested watching some plastic bubble and listening to some Bob Marley in the sun might be in order, the marlin had been around in fairly good numbers so I indicated we had a pretty good chance of getting one, in fact we'd seen everything from small stripes to big blacks chasing bait through the week, but the fellas still got a bit of a fright when we had a marlin fight on our hands an hour into proceedings.....we had a whack on the Green Meanie on the long corner which peeled some line, then a stripey came in behind it again, MARLIN! the fellas yelled out, I sped the boat to close to plane speed and the fish shot over and ate the Bonze Apache on the long rigger....ZZZZZZZZ we were on, the fellas cleared the gear in quick fashion and with a stripey going Bananas we went to work on getting some line back.......this is a bit easier than fighting a 400kg fish on a Stella anyway a Gary!!
Was a pretty stubborn fish, Gary had another hard fight on his hands! De Ja Vu!!
Would have to be the most stubborn striped marlin I've seen, didn't like the boat at all and every time he got close he took to the air - pretty cool for the fellas!!
I got about three shots at the leader, each time he took to the sky, finally on the third shot we got him boatside, the tag went in, and the Bonze Apache removed for safe keeping :-)
Gazza about to tow the stripey for a while before release! Stoked for ya mate! Great effort on a stubborn fish!!
The last day you would think the boys were a bit jaded now the fifth day chasing the fish hard, but Dave got stuck in as usual, railed as!!!
Some plastic action today, Albert on the softie
Gazza snuck another fattie in!
Les stocked up on the snappers for dinner
One last kingi for Dave before we went in search of some munter snapper in the shallows
The tides, wind and currents all line up for a good softbait session at Slipper and the boys were getting whacked left right a centre, the best fish of the session was this saaaawweeeeet snaper for Gazza, what a way to finish the trip - 8.5kgs of hard fighting NZ snapper, pulled from 6m of foul and weed on 20 pound leader - Gulp 4 inch Nuclear Chicken Worm.
What a sweet trifecta Gazza, once again a pleasure having you and Les and great to meet and fish with you Dave and Mick - good times! See you fellas again!
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