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Published: February 13th 2013
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What can I say but, it don't get much better than this!
Met John this morning who was taking us out on his boat. Talk about toys for the boys. A garage full of tools and fishing rods and on the drive a Land Cruiser hitched up to a trailer on which is a boat.........happy days.
Took the boat out of Gulf Harbour and into the Hauraki Gulf, then motored for about half an hour past Tiritiri Matangi Island. Yet again a beautiful day, and from land the sea looked like a mill pond. This is deceptive however as once at sea there is a slight swell and "Capitan John" decides to show me how fast the boat can go in these water conditions. For a while we just skimmed from the top of one swell to the next. On board the feeling is that of severe turbulence. I asked John if any licence or training was needed to take a boat out as far as this. The response was non-committal but I think he had some kind of training??!! At 70ish and only having been in the country for about 7 yrs he'd truly adopted the laid back
Kiwi attitude. A real nice bloke. Once we'd got to the point he wanted we then fished and started to drift for a few hours.
Much to Mick and Johns surprise within ten minutes I'd brought up the first snapper, and couldn't get rid of the stupid grin on my face. The first thing Mick caught was himself whilst trying to unhook one of my fish! The water was so clear that you could see your bait go down twenty feet or more. The lads kept saying I could go for a swim off the boat but having seen the size of some of the snapper we'd caught I decided to stay on board. A good decision as soon after John got a good bite on his soft bait line, that he tought was a King Fish, but it was short lived as a shark surfaced and jumped out of the water twice biting through the line, fish and tackle lost. If you had no action for a while I soon cottoned on to the fact that as soon as you pour a cup of tea or have a sandwich you'll get a bite. However my fishing prowess was
not in the same league as that of Mick or John who both admittedly caught the best of the catch. However there was at least a couple of hours banter between them about who'd caught the biggest...........all I did was play them off against each other.
On the way back in I was sat up front with John whilst Mick was sat back in the stern on a seat low down by the engine. We'd drifted quite a way so John didn't spare the horses and for some unknown reason hadn't noticed the big vessel that had passed by some way off. Mick and I had noticed however the large wake heading our way. With no time to react other than hit it square on John said "This'll be big" no shit I thought, remembering him saying that the boat was unsinkable........all well and good but I'm sure it's no fun trying to hang on to an upturned boat waiting to be rescued! Then we were air borne and the prop was screaming though the air. After what seemed like an age we landed and I thought the bottom of the boat wold be smashed through. All John said
was "just like landing on concrete eh" too right, it felt like my spine had been compressed by a couple of inches. Then I thought Mick! turning gingerly in my seat due to my spine being fused I saw that he was still there......just a grimace then a smile, but the eyes said it all.
Hunter gatheres having returned a production line was set up, Mick in the kitchen gutting the catch and me in the garden with a bucket and hose de-scaling the fish. We took the there largest of the catch for dinner (which was mistake as they'd of fed at least six and there were only three of us eating!) and froze the rest. Liberally doused with lomon, lime, Soya sauce, fresh ginger, garlic and other loveliness we made three differently flavoured fish and promptly BBQd them. Eaten with heaps of salad and washed down with good wine.
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