Teaching the old man some new tricks...

Well bugger me I'm off the tank and back snorkling (free diving for you young bloods)..after putting the young guys onto a couple of me yester year spots and seeing their results I have invested in 5 mill wettie, taken 8 kg of me weight belt and brought a snorkel.

So as fate would have it I got loaded into a ute with 4 other lanky hardcase young fella's and 4.30am on a sat morning we set sail for the coast. Road trip!! So as I was rideing shotgun I broke out some cat stevens , dire straights and a bit of ozzy to pass the time.. we yarned lied and bull shitted our way down to try out some of their spots.

Well we arrive to find about a meter swell running and a full tide...next thing I know these lads are in wetsuits geared up and gone.. 5 mins later there's a whoop and hell yeah as the first cray is tagged and bagged.Better get amongst it I decide so I geard up and jumped in.

Now if the truth be told I haven't snorkled hard out for 20 years so the first hour had me buggered and as I finned in to have a break I saw a rock and a crack runing down the side of it so I dropped down and well well a cray.. grab stuff and surface!! "phew" back down whip off a couple of paua and i'm done.

So I'm sitting in the sun feeling like the cat that stole the cream when my lad comes in to check on the old fella "to make sure he's not having a turn"(cheeky liittle shit) opens the chilly bin to see me cray and paua.. gives me a punch in the shoulder and one of his easy grins "bloody hell dad he says take you to my secret spot and your thrashing it"...

This was a start to two days that I will tresure and I will never forget.. we changed spots tried here there and yarned with the locals. day one concluded with us having spent 6 hours in the water, and between 5 of us we had 19 crays and 22 paua (we could of had our limit of both). So fish n chips for tea and three beers for me and it was in to me scratcher and lights out.

Day2 .. up at 7 cooked the young folk scrambled eggs toast and spaggetti the back into wet wetsuits and back into the water.. by now I was hitting my stride.I was relaxing controlling my breathing and extending my bottom time. The vis had improved over night so I could now choose which rocks to dive and hunt the better turf.

We tried a new spot amongst the seals with mixed results curly speared a great butter and the big fella (he's a monster) bagged the best cray of the weekend 3.5lb me I mucked about but only bagged one good paua.Maf stopped for a yarn and a look so once we'd chew'd the fat with them we were off again, down the coast to try to find a super secrect spot (so secrect no of us new it). The young blokes are mad keen so it's just a point and jump decsion, so in we plowed again with the tide dropping the young folk headed for deeper water, me I knew the crays were shallow so why go deeper (cunning old barsatrd eh).. did an hour at this (our new favorite spot). the old fart had 5 crays in the sack , and 6 great paua.. that was me i was buggered.

So I dragged my sorry arse up a rock like and old seal and sat in the sun taking in what was an amazing weekend. We called it a day after that dive with a total of 29 crays and 40 paua for the weekend. The young folk drove me home and were even good enough to drink my beer whist we cooked the crays at my place bless em.

The next day i got a phone call that my aunt has passed ... Life can be short live it well eh.

Cheers Joe.

Sorry to hear about your Aunty, Joe. What a cracker trip. Well done! :thumbsup: thanks for the write up!

Well done Stinray. Good times anmd afeed for Christmas.

Sounds like a cracker trip Joe.
Something on my to do list. Only really had one go at it and was to unfit:D but still managed some paua

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Something I want to get back into, though I've only actually snorkeled once, and too many moons ago to contemplate. I used to swim underwater a lot, but it always irked me that I couldn't quite get the last 5m. On the second length of the main QEII pool I couldn't quite reach the end. :pissed off:

Good write up. Mmmm cray and paua.

Bloody excellent!!!! i hope its like that for me in a few years time thanks for the write up Stingray.

Cool story, sorry bout your aunt. Do you have to be fit for diving? I was going to go with my dad and little brother but instead went fishing on my kayak.

thanks guys ... I've posted a very very basic guide on free diving

But don't let fitness be an obsticale, you just have to know your limits ..start small and work from there ..baby steps I guess.

I mean to say at low tide we were getting paua in chest deep water and crays in about 10 feet ... But shhhh it's a secert.

the end of a epic 10 days paua buttrerfish seals scaring the shit out of me video of a whale just outside the surf break more butters (all left to tell the tale) jouvie crays by the dozen scallops and shit even my old nemisis stitches the stingray waiting for me today in the same spot as 8 years ago (for F*#King real) a visit to old haunts life is without question amazing....wil write more tommorrow if I'm not out at cabel bay freediving waters at 18degrees and the blue waters in close and has brought kingis and clear water with it ..so much to tell but so little sleep more as soon as i can

Looking forward to it Stingray

nice writeup stingray. with it walking up a bit I'm hoping to get more time in the water. never know when your number will be up so got to maker's many memories as possible while you can

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Originally Posted by horihunter

nice writeup stingray. with it walking up a bit I'm hoping to get more time in the water. never know when your number will be up so got to maker's many memories as possible while you can

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Too right HH. You only get so many heartbeats and unfortunately we are not fitted with a meter so we don't know how close we are to using them up.

Riteo wethear going to the pack so here a brief write up of the last few days...

It all started with a day trip to the coast with some of the younger lads with me doing the houners of taking the truck and dragging thier arses out of the fart sack at 4.30 in the morning and since I was driving they choose the sounds which consisted of alot of omp omp music with lyrics that I couldn't understand and I have a feeling that it's better i didn't ask...so on with trip... we by passed our normal spots as we were hunting crays more so than paua and having giving the normal place quite a work out we were looking for fresh grounds (there is still a shit load of crays where we have being going but weve taken out the bigger ones recently so not point in spending all day measureing small stuff).. right so we found a likely looking spot and geared up. Well the first thing is a bloody large and tereatorial seal comes over and buzz's us in your face teeth out sort of stuff ..kind of gives you the shits big time. righto out of here and walk round the coast 300meters bak in and into the weed beauty crays butters (dumb butters) and moki. Out with curly's harpoon and me with the gloves on and into em... shit bugger blast crays missed shit shit more crays missed but old curly comes through with 5 big head shot butters.We left the moki as they were marginal size and throwing away undersize dead fish is a crimainal waste.

We ended the day with a dozen new cray holes some intersting recpies for occy from an Isralie dude that had grabbed one (they grow em big in these parts).goes something like this boil it freeze it boil it cool chop it up and eat it (yum??)

Right so home refuel grab the family that was with me for xmas and away we went again back to the coast stopping bout 8pm for a quick paua dive for tea met a truckie heading up north for xmas so back in and grabbed 5 more to fill my quota and sent 5 of em north with him he was wrapt (felt great bit like santa eh).got to the camp set up cooked up had a brew and into my scratcher.

Xmas day.. up lateish caught up with the relies and did the big breakfast scoff.. sat around spinning yarns and telling lies for an hour or two when i got itchy feet going for a swim I say nek minete Im stuffed in a van full of dive gear and people .. "where ya reckon we should go Joe?? is their battle cry (should have shut my yap eh) took them down the coast to a good spot out of the van and geared up. They were watch me like a pack of vulturs curcilng and waiting took em out into the surge and bull kelp (where the bigs one reside) not the best result so after abit of ribbing about me being as cunning as an outhouse rat I took em over to where their were more but smaller paua we all grabed a feed and back in the van and back to their pad.

Cleaned the paua and I took the wee folk down to the river with some gut and entertained them by feeding the eels ducks and trout paua guts (best berly in the world).Had xmas tea with the reilies and wandedred back to camp couple more brews and it didn't take any rocking to start the snoreing.

Boxing day I was up and at em snuck past the reilies house and away down the coast for a cray dive.. tried a coule of faviortie holes but they were pretty lean pickings so after scratching me head away i went to a new reef. The vis was fantastic but I wasn't my breath holds were shit and I was feeling generally uncomfortable so diving was abadoned and out with a hot hermos and a couple of rolls shoved down me neck.

By then it had started to rain and blow so the day was a bust so into the truck and back up the coast to break camp and head for home ...so were rollong up the coast just past Kowhai bridge when something caught my eye ..thought it was dolphins in close jumpin etc found a turn off down the gravel track and ...(you wont belive this) up comes a bloody great tail about 100 meters from shore then there fin/fluke?? slaps as a juvie spearm whale plays in the shallow bay (got video trying to up load it need a teenager to help) wicked as sat thier for half an hour watching thinking it could have being going to ground itself or tail wrapt on a cray pot or something ..just seem to be happy as slapping the water and eventally it cruised out futher off the coast.

broke camp and headed off to catch up with my folks at okiwi, arrived to find a painting project was on the go..so I cooked tea..fresh paua salad and new spuds!! shared the vid with them spun some yarns and off the bed (perfect).

Lost track of the days so buggered if I know what day was the other day but up and out in the stabi (took a tank for scallops) out and heading for durville got half way down when we started hitting wind squalls..wasn't looking good so headed in to the mainland to Taiparie, well bugger me the cod were on the bite and insanely strong even the small cod were fighting like 10lbers.They were smashing everything but frustratingly bitting the tails off the soft baits so we slayed a baracouta and turned it into cut baits and went up two 8/0 hooks and still the smaller cod were slamming the baits we went from 60 to 110 feet and in the end we quit with 5 takers becuse we were handling to many small cod (yip moved moved moved still the same problem ..even in the sand they still found your baits after a while).so back to chrosilles and down for a scallop the vis was amazing and the water temp is up to 18 degrees (took the gps this time cunning eh) grabbed a quota and back in the boat gutted the cod and sorted the, scallops had a cuppa and a bite.

What to do now?? How bout a cray dive ..over to an old haunt and out with the snorkle it's clear and shallow beauty!!.Into the water and into a school of huge Kaiwhai the hold on what are those??KINGIS the rat kingis were hanging with the kawhai and out about 15foot on the edge of my vis you could see the big boys lurking not huge prob 30lb at the most but F#*king wicked all the same.. swam with them in about 30ft of water for 10mins was wicked then sorted my shit and went cray hunting finned over the outer reef and into the caves and cracks that i could rember dived down into a favourite crack and as I got near the bottom FARK there lying in the sandis a bloddy great big black ray with it's tail up (a warning pose) now as I've said i've being tagged once before but for this to be in the same spot in the same crack I reckon bloody stiches was waiting for me .. well that was a heart stopper!! back to the surface and had a float trying to calm down and slow my heart rate.. got my shit together and off to other rocks saw heaps of small crays some 3 inches long but all the takers I grabbed were soft so I just spent the next half hour memourisng cracks and rocks for winter when the big bucks come in shallow.

well thats about it...packing again now for new years at okiwi wether looking like shit so packing some posso traps and a shooter will see you all in the New Year keep safe and enjoy everyone.
Joe.

Awesome report Joe:thumbsup:

down to french pass.. wind blowing it's tits off so round into deep bay for some shelterd water.. clear as vis reaching 30 feet (which is very good for the round here).My son Blake & me free diving spent the first half an hour smashing up kina's to feed the blue cod and waitng for the tide to drop so I could dive some reef I spied but was to deep for me a full tide. little cod and spotties and the odd wrase were all we had for company..Blake buggered off to have a look at some turf he had seen from to road and I was left to entertain myself. Sat on a rock with a flat calm sea around me was very relaxing. The tide dropped a bit so back in the water,an hour later I was reaching new depths that I would not have believed possible 3 months ago (it seems you can teach an old man new tricks).

Dived some fantastic turf huge cracks and holes, saw some beauty moki & blue cod but the crays hadn't read the script and were awol. Blake & me then stooged around a couple of shallow weed beds no butters seen, but as they say you never know whats around the corner so we spent the next 3 hours swimming up & down the coast..taking my own advise I was watching the currents & resticted myself to how far I ventured. No fish were harmed on this outing no paua seen.

Back to Okiwi and shit it blew so off home to do chores around the house untill the weather improved.Which it did on Saturday so loaded up the trusty Nissan and back to Okiwi out and down to paddock rocks Dolphins all the way down the coast made it a slow trip as the crew wanted photos and to swim with em ( had to tell em this is a fishing boat not a dolphin research vessel), caught up with some good cod but spot X has stopped producing those mega fish of winter/spring. Got our cod and a couple of Barra's for bait nt out into the sand for gurnard & maybe a snapper ... Bite "hell yeah" line pulled .. more line pulled fingers crossed for a good snapper ...No deal couple of big grey boys.

Bugger this time to cool off freedived some weed beds not alot about so back in the boat and over to a cray spot.. Broke out a tank (kind of feels like cheating now) and me and blake dropped down for a dive we hit 50ft and were into some mint turf Huge moki & cod some small blue mio mio , I looked into a crack you beauty cray!! then what the ...blake snagged one beside me (cheeky little shit reckons I need glasses)... then to add insult to injury I make an arse of myself and tits up my one FARK!!

Back to into the boat saving our tanks for scallops (our spots have being a bit leen of late)...up the coast on a flat arse calm sea.Stopped at an old mark from yesteryear over the side for a spot check and well well you little beauty's come to papa.. so here I am grabbing me a hand full of scallops then a bloody great paw full of scallops bloody blake can't stay in the boat for five mins and freediving scallops. depth 30ft wore him out pretty quickly so I surfaced and waited for him to chuck on his tank and we slayed our quota in 10 mins. then home for a clean up.

Up and out on Sunday with my old man & mum and the rest of the tribe took em to a few of my spots (apperntly he took me there years ago eh .. Insert tui add here) got another feed of cod and then dropped them on me scallop patch they loved it a clear dive in warm water with plenty of scallops . Sadly it was over all to soon and I was packing for home and back to work on monday... but what a xmas break.

Just off the phone from yarnin with the young folk sounds like a trip to the coast is on the cards ... I love this shit!!

Attachment 6026

50 cm blue cod from weekend ... I didn't catch it obviously.