Just to show we do have the odd day from hell in amongst all the great days of fishing in a year both around Taupo and in the Bay Of Islands, this report is on yesterdays events starting from a few days previous.

I finished guiding repeat clients the Wartons from Australia down Taupo way on the 22nd and drove the 7 hours up to Waitangi arriving in the middle of the night in order to fish the next two days in the Hoppin fishing tournament with my uncle Mike.

On the 23rd, got out of bed at 6am and went to the boat moored in Opua to go fishing. Same process on the 24th but with a few social drinks afterwards to celebrate our victory in the Kingfish section of the tournament – where we were team 2 or 3 for the Mangonui Hotel. On the 25th got out of bed again at 6am to go game fishing with my co-skipper Stephen Rowe. 11am land the boats first marlin caught on a pacific lumo. 6pm weighed in the Marlin. Half past midnight got to bed. 26th got up at 4am to drive to Taupo where I was to be meeting my mate Ross and his old man Ian to do our annual Heli-hunting trip. On reaching Welsford and stopping to go to the loo the engine of my Landcruiser stalled while I waited for the Turbo to cool down. I started it again and it staled immediately so I called up Ian who is a diesel mechanic working out of Keri Keri in the Bay Of Islands. Ian had me check the fuel filter and then the linkages to the injector pump and then asked me to see if I could get into gear without dropping the revs back which I could so I continued on my way. A short while later at the Albany off ramp on the motorway the phone rang (it is still legal to talk on cell phones in vehicles in New Zealand) and Ian said that he had thought about it and I should pull over as the vehicle might suddenly just stall on me – as he said this the cruiser cut out and I had to put the phone down and pull over. As a member of AA Plus I was able to organise a free inspection and then tow equivalent in length to getting my vehicle home so after talking to Ian on the phone then postponed the helicoptor from 2pm to 4pm and AA organised a tow to the landcruiser to Hamilton where I would be able to get my vehicle fixed while I was away hunting and then pick it up on the 1st and only be an hour and a half away from Taumaranui where I am due to guide from the 2nd. The tow truck driver – a great fella turned up at 10:30am loaded up my crippled cruiser bound for Hamilton. The towie was an ex governent deer culler and was happy to pass on a few tips for my trip and did everything he could to get me to Hamilton ASAP – despite hitting several sets of road works one of which held us up for 15 minutes. AA Plus had arranged a rental vehicle to be waiting at the mechanics workshop and I was back on the road just after 12:30 heading for Taupo after leaving a couple of slabs of smoked kingfish with the towie (am a fan of catch and release but we needed to weigh in fish for the tournament).

At 2pm After 20 sets of road works I was just south of Tokoroa with around half an hour left to Taupo and on the phone in the midst of receiving a hurry up call from Ian – not paying attenting to my speed in the peppy little corolla in 5th gear heading downhill on a straight with clear road and no vehicles ahead nor road works for the first time in the journey when I saw a police vehice following a truck on the opposite side turn its lights on and do a U turn – I slowed down and pulled over thinking of leaving the road clear so that I wouldn’t obstuct the police vehicle on its journey or chase but the police vehicle just pulled over and stopped in front of me. The policeman came to my window with a look on his face remarkably resemblent to the look of self satisfaction and achievement on my mates face the previous day when we boated the marlin. He said in a calm confident and deeply satisfied tone “do you realize you were doing 142?” I was stunned and in complete fear of the imminent speeding fine when he informed that anything over 140 is instant license confiscation for 28 days!

The policeman took the keys and then dropped me off at the bus stop back at Tokoroa where I booked a ticket back at 3pm. The bus that was meant to arrive at 3:25 unfortunately the driver must have forgotton to take it out of stealth mode or had a cloaking device on at the time it passed because it never arrived and I had to wait till 5 for the next one. At midnight I arrived home and had my first decent nights sleep for 3 weeks. Here I sit on the computer now typing this report rather than hunting with my mates.

I have had to organize the other guides I work with to do my guiding for the next 28 days which means no income for a month. I feel it unprofessional to turn up with a driver and know that the other guides I work with are fantastic guides and can easily do the same job for my clients as I can so felt this was the best option. For the clients that have booked everything will continue as per normal except on the first job the clients will refer to the guide as “John” rather than “Andrew”. For the second and 3rd jobs the clients will still call the guide “Andrew” as the guide will be Andrew Christmas rather than me (Andrew Blake).

The speeding fine of $500 is nothing in comparison to the thousands that my injector pump is going to cost as I have been told that it is self destructing from the inside – the mechanics found metal parts on some solenoid at the back of it or something. Evidently extremely rare in a Toyota Landcruiser and any parts are horrifically expensive due to there being very few Landcruisers that ever have this problem.

On the bright side – I get to go fishing – hard core for the next month and complete the boat survey.

There is a channel marker bouy in the Bay Of Islands with a few kingfish hanging around it in the mornings that followed but refused our popper flies the other day and are due for a dust up. The marlin are also going to have a few more choices of lures to eat. I wouldn’t mind getting my first blue and I am sure that Steve is keen to get his first on the new boat.

Went game fishing with my mate and co-skipper of the Anglers Anonymous sportfishing boat today. The start of 6:30am was a little early for my liking given the few social drinks consumed yesterday evening at the Bay Of Islands Swordfish Club in Paihia at the finish of the Hoppin tournament we had just been in – but I dare not argue with Steve!

I was having a wee nap up the front of the boat when the right rigger rod went off and we both bolted into action. With Steve on the wheel and me on the rod the fight lasted around 20 minutes and though we are both fans of catch and release, I must admit that we did keep this one to christen the new boat and get a few photos for advertising – we did think it was a little bigger at the time and it would have been over 90 had we weighed it in straight away rather than trauling for the rest of day – weiged in the evening at 87.3kg.

We decided that it had been a great move earlier to remove the remaing bottles of Lion Red beer from the boat – which had evidently caused the hard days fishing yesterday – and that me staying away from the helm was also in the best interests of hooking fish so I was sent back below to have another nana nap. We briefly hooked – for a few seconds – two mahi mahi before heading back to Russell to weigh in the Marlin.

Later

It was a little slower today most likely due to the Bronze Whaler sharks that were around in too good a numbers. We managed to bring in three nice sized kingfish heads which was great because they were really giving us a workout when the had tails and bodies, but thankfully the sharks were able to skillfully chomp the bodies and tails off with one nice smooth rounded cut for us to save us from straining ourselves too much. Fortunately as well for our tired aching bodies the sharks were just into eating our fresh struggling kingfish and not our dead whole baits which they just swam straight past without even looking.

Had a great day out today with my Uncle Mike, Mike Burgin – my brother in law, and Stephen Rowe – my mate. We did great on the yellowtail kingfish today hooking around 20 or so reasonable sized fish. We lost a lot of these to the reefs and sharks and kept moving to try and keep away from the sharks. Eventually we got sick of the sharks and put out a whole dead bait which resulted in a 20 minute fight for me on game tackle before before the 100kg + (+ several kingfish) Bronze Whaler shark eventually broke the steel trace at the boat.

Guided the Wartons for their 3rd and final day of their fishing trip based out of Spot X Lodge with us. Today was a casting tuition day and the Wartons really improved their casting significantly with Bruce comfortably double hauling and managing the line and mending by lunch time. Marj also did well and each landed a nice fish after lunch when we started fishing with Bruce landing this nice 3lb brown trout to finish the trip off

After a frustrating start for the Wartons – it took until the 7th fish before one finally hit the shore just before lunch for Bruce. Not long after lunch Marj hooked a fantastic trout which she controlled well and finally landed a fantastic 5lb Rainbow that actually bought tears of joy to her! Thinking that this wouldn’t be beaten on this trip was a mistake as within 5 minutes Marj was hooked into another trout of a complete different character. The trout took off like a freight train when it realised something was wrong with the nymph it had inhaled and had the flyline plus 30 meters of backing out within a few seconds. Marj held on and let it run even when lying flat in the water after stumbling before I was able to lift her to her feet. As she was lying in the water on the rocks trying to regain her balance in a light rapid I asked if she was OK and she replied “I’ve still got it .., Ive still got it!” After recovering the line and playing the fish further downstream to the near side of the river I finally netted for her a cracker 6lb rainbow perfectly proportioned and with a lbs all going well).

Guided Bruce and Marj Warton from Australia today – back at Spot X Lodge after nearly a year since their last fishing trip with us. Had a good day with 7 good trout hooked, the smallest landed was a 2lb Rainbow and the biggest landed by Bruce was a 4.5lb fish that nearly had all the backing out and took Bruce 60 meters down river before coming to the net after a long battle.

Picked up Tom Schenkenberg from Turangi’s only 5 star lodge “River Birches” this morning and headed off for some back country fly fishing. I was going to take him to a small little wilderness river a couple of hours drive away for some dry fly but heavy rain en route changed my mind and we took the safe option of blind nymphing a nearby river instead. Not long after arriving at our destination Tom managed to hook and land a cracker 4lb rainbow trout that took him up a rapid around some rocks and had us dancing over boulders for some time before coming to the net. If I had remembered the camera then I could have taken a photo of it rather than of Tom back at the car showing how big it was. Tom then managed a smaller Rainbow of around a pound and a half before being bust off by another and then landing another nice 4lb Rainbow Trout that was very stubborn about coming to the net. Around lunch time Tom landed another nice 3lb Rainbow before being blown away by a 4 lb-ish freight train of a Rainbow that hit “like a ton of bricks” to quote Tom, before steaming off down a rapid and down river with us in chase for 100 meters or so before losing us. The final fish was a debatable one that hooked when I took the rod from Tom to show him why his cast and then mend wouldn’t catch a fish and what he should do instead – of course a trout grabbed the fly and hooked up a split second after he handed me the rod before I could even strip it in and then jumped a few times before spitting the hook on me. Tom thought that was a great way to end a fantastic days fishing!

Guided Jeremy Weitz for the last day of his trip today before flying back to Thailand. Had an easy relaxing day and worked more on double hauling than anything but still managed to hook and lose 5 good fish over 2lbs of which 2 were in the 4lb range. Jeremy also landed a couple of smaller 1.5lb rainbows. Jeremy’s casting which was already very good had a big increase in distance with the introduction to double hauling. Jeremy had a great time later on back at the lodge trying to target a large 6lb (approximately) brown trout out front that was extremely cunning! Had a great time guiding Jeremy and I look forward to his return next year.

Guided Jeremy Weitz out back country again today. The fishing was slowish as predicted due to conditions however Jeremy still managed to land 3 nice trout which included a 2 .5lb pound rainbow on nymph, a 4lb brown trout that was sight fished on dry fly and a nice 4.75lb rainbow sight fished on a nymph. There was also a 4th smaller brown of around 1lb landed. Jeremy thoughrouly enjoyed himself and his casting was in great form today