Guest Blog by Mark Armistead - Extreme Sportfishing Adventures
Photos by Mark Armistead and Jason Taylor
This
years trip to the Ranfurly Banks didn’t quite start out as it had been planned,
a slight mishap on the behalf of Jetstar saw a whole bunch of fishing rods go
AWOL prior to the trip. That left us with a later than planned start and a
brutal steam through the night to get to the banks.
Unfortunately for us we also had a pretty sour window of weather forecast for the entire trip, either side of our trip saw some respite from the wind but not so lucky for us. Even with some pretty brutal winds, 30knots plus for most of the trip we still fished every day and only had one day not out on the Banks.
Jigging was the order of the day and mornings saw the best bites, plenty of good fish were caught and some even bigger fish were lost!!! Even though we were there to try our hands at some top water fishing the fish just never came up to the surface for us, the sign on the sounder screamed surface action with many big fish being spotted on the sounder in prime zones. It wasn’t through a lack of effort though with guys casting at every likely opportunity.
One of the rough days sent us to some spots closer in and let us at some of the tasty deep water Hapuka, everybody landed a nice Hapuka and some of the meals we had afterwards were pretty special. Throw in some trumpeter, Terakihi and sashimi kingfish and we really ate like kings.
Pretty tough conditions and hard fishing was the order of the day for this trip but the whole group plugged away and never moaned or complained even the sea sick ones were hard as nails. We had a taste of the big fish and just how powerful they are, but they left us hoping for more and ready to come back and rumble again.
Unfortunately for us we also had a pretty sour window of weather forecast for the entire trip, either side of our trip saw some respite from the wind but not so lucky for us. Even with some pretty brutal winds, 30knots plus for most of the trip we still fished every day and only had one day not out on the Banks.
Jigging was the order of the day and mornings saw the best bites, plenty of good fish were caught and some even bigger fish were lost!!! Even though we were there to try our hands at some top water fishing the fish just never came up to the surface for us, the sign on the sounder screamed surface action with many big fish being spotted on the sounder in prime zones. It wasn’t through a lack of effort though with guys casting at every likely opportunity.
One of the rough days sent us to some spots closer in and let us at some of the tasty deep water Hapuka, everybody landed a nice Hapuka and some of the meals we had afterwards were pretty special. Throw in some trumpeter, Terakihi and sashimi kingfish and we really ate like kings.
Pretty tough conditions and hard fishing was the order of the day for this trip but the whole group plugged away and never moaned or complained even the sea sick ones were hard as nails. We had a taste of the big fish and just how powerful they are, but they left us hoping for more and ready to come back and rumble again.
You can book your own adventure to Ranfurly Banks with Extreme - visit http://www.extremesportfishing.co.nz/
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