Our day 3 in the far north saw the winds drop but the fishing got harder.
Launching in the Harbour just on day break we made our way along the coastline towards Houhora. We thought we would start the morning off once again flicking a few softies around the wash and shallows like the previous day. We had caught nothing of substantial size snapper wise at places we had caught monsters every time fishing the area.
We started our softbait adventure at one of our favourite rocks we always start at and have had some nice fish pulled from here. It was a perfect setting with no wind and the sun only just creeping out of bed (nice low light). It was a very quiet start with only just a little rat king caught by Stevo at our first spot. As we headed further down the coast to our next favourite spot we tried a few corners and coves with little to no action, it was starting to look like it was the beginning of one of those days.
We arrived at our next spot where we had caught a few horses from but once again it was very quiet apart from stevo landing this time a little snap around 50cm. We tried and tried, it was hard to give up such an epic big fish spot but after a hard hour of trying here, and a couple more corners and coves we had to pull the pin and head for the deep. If they weren't in here we were hoping they were schooling in the deep. We do love to get a couple of deep water softbaiting seshes in when in the north. The other great thing is being in the deep and on foul ground we normally pick up a few reefies. It didn't take long before we had a few reefies starting to hit the deck of the little Osprey.
Stevo's first reffie was a granddaddy hapuka and mine a nice size johnny. If the snaps weren't here at least other species were. We were constantly getting hit on our softies which was nice to have and my next fish was a pig fish which made its way to the bin. Dropping my softie once again, mid water it was hit and hit hard. I actually couldn't stop it so had to bust it off before I lost all my line. I didn't even have a chance to turn its head. I was picking it was a shark? but wouldn't have thought a big boy would be interested in a softie.
At least we were into the action unlike this morning fishing the shallows. Our reefie plan was coming together nicely as I landed another grandaddy. Stevo had changed over to a slow jig which had been starting to hook up a few fish. After losing one he managed to land a nice size parrot fish which also made its way to the bin. It's actually quite nice to catch other species every now and then instead of the norm. Snapper fishing can get a bit boring if you're doing it all the time and to be honest some of these fish are a lot tastier. We caught a few more before they also went a little quiet so once again we wound up and headed off to another spot.
We decided to finish the day off in one of the bays trying for snapper on a spot that has never let us down. It's a nice little reef that rises up from 20mtrs to 12 and fish seem to feed on it. Arriving and flicking out the softie it started off in true form. It looked like our little reef might just produce a few kelpies for us. We did manage a couple for the bin but it was really turning out to be one of those days. With the mussel farm being on our way home it was time to put the softies away, head back to where we started the day off, but this time drop the anchor and berley at our big Trever spot in the mussel farm. This was our last spot and we were hoping to add a couple of big trev's to the bin.
It was a fun ending to our day battling a few nice trev's and we even managed a couple mussel farm snaps to add to the bin. Although a bit of a tough day we had a nice colorful bin and in the end even though it was a hard day on the water it was still a fun one with a mate....
Tight lines
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