Pursuit of Happiness

December 21, 2007

We got back to Rotorua last night after spending 3 nights on a fantastic fishing boat called Pursuit, with lots of stories and pictures of big catches in the Bay of Plenty.

On Monday, Will and I spent the day with Emily (John had one last day of work) and we headed to Whakatane (prounounced fa-ka-tan-ee; weird, I know), where we would be boarding the boat. On the way, we stopped at Julians, a berry farm, for homemade frozen yogurt and ice cream, yum!

We got to Whakatane early, so we went to Hopi beach to walk around. The three of us got caught in a little rain shower, so that was our first taste of getting a little wet before getting on the boat.
We had some beer at a pub down the street from the harbor, and then had our last meal on solid ground at the Whakatane Sportfishing Club before we started loading the boat.

Pursuit is owned by skipper Rick Pollock, who is renowned in New Zealand for running one of the best charter operations and has been fishing for over 30 years. He gets help from his new deckhand, Zane, and together, they were our best resources for great fishing.

John had been fishing a couple times with Rick and had planned all of the details for us. Along with the four of us, two of John's fishing buddies, Dave and Pat, were along for the trip.

The goal of the fishing trip was to head to Ranfurley Banks, about 120 miles from Whakatane, where the fishing is supposedly fantastic, so long as the weather cooperates and allows you to get out there. The weather report was a little pessimistic, so Rick had suggested that we head straight out to Ranfurley overnight (approximately 8-10 hours away) so that we would arrive early morning and get fishing right away. So, we went for it, and it was quite the choppy ride and a lackluster night of sleep. I did my best to load up on dramamine ahead of time, but was definitely a night of discomfort.

We got to Ranfurley Banks around 5:30 am and the boat was up and ready for action. It took me some time to get my bearings, but Will, Dave and John were at it immediately. The first dropped lines picked up action as soon as they were in the water and the fishing action was off to a quick start.

Throughout the morning, we were hopping with good fishing action, with catches of hapuka and bass fish. Rick had literally dropped us in amazing fishing zones. The current was very active, but once you got used to the movement of the boat, it was much better to be out on deck fishing than inside getting ill. Everyone was bringing in good catches.

I got in on the action finally and managed to get a big bass on my line. It felt like ages (when it was only about 20 minutes) of hard and painful (if not torturous) reeling. Thank goodness Johnny held onto my harness, as there were a couple times when I thought I was going to be pulled into the waters with the fishies. I finally pulled in a large bass fish, approximately 40 kg (~90 lbs). I was exhausted but happy:

The day went on, and Rick kept putting us in the best spots for getting fish. There were some great feats of physical work, with each of us pulling in fantastic fish.
Double-header of bass and hapuka:
Near the end of the day, Will just had to out-do my big catch of the day by catching an even bigger bass, weighing 63 kgs (~120 lbs):
When we weren't fishing, Rick and Zane were treating us well. They fully cater and take care of all meals and clean-up, all the while navigating the boat and making sure that we're all taken care of with help on the deck and pulling in our big fish. They are a well-oiled machine.

There was one moment during the day when I had a bad spell of sea sickness (despite the dramamine), when I had gone below to get more sunscreen (bad idea) and then went to the loo right after (really bad idea; really small space in rolling waters = bad), and I lost a little bit of my powerade into the ocean. Thankfully, that was the only time in the 3 days that I lost it. It really is amazing how much of it is in your head as well. Once you start thinking you're going to get sick, you might as well get sick.

After a big day of fishing and little sleep, we were all knackered, so we got to bed early. Thankfully, we had pulled into Hicks Bay (2 hours from Ranfurley), so it was calmer and we got some zzz's.

On Wednesday morning, we headed back out to Ranfurley Banks after breakfast and got back into the action. Rick had dropped us in an area where we were targeting kingfish, and as with the day before, we had immediate action.

One of the first bites with jigging were some good-sized kingfish. Johnny was reeling in a big kingie when he saw a mako shark in the water going for his fish. He reeled in a big kingie that had been bitten in half by the shark as it was being reeled in:
It was all action, with strong currents, so we could get a few fish in before having to motor back to the good spots. We were catching a lot of small to mid-sized kingfish (lots of tag and release) and will brought in another huge catch, this time a big hapuka fish weighing 43 kgs (~99 lbs). Will was on fire!
Emily caught a big kingie as well:

And so did everyone else:

I did some jigging, and it was a lot of fun, in a short amount of time when Will and I were trading off turns on the jig rod, I caught and reeled in 7 smaller kingfish, it was so much fun!

At some point, Zane convinced me that it would be a good idea to go after a mako shark, so he struck a deal with me, if he and Rick got one on a line, I would reel it in...what was I thinking?
And so, it was like fate, Pat caught a small kingie that a mako had closed in on and taken a piece of, so Zane quickly took the half-eaten kingie and put it on a rod with a mako tracer and after some skilled work, Rick got the mako on the line, passed the rod to me, and I was strapped into the rod and holding on for dear life. It was about 20 minuts of sheer grit and pain, thankfully Johnny was holding onto my harness again, because the shark would sporadically have fits of energy and almost pull me into the water. Rick helped me out by using the boat to help me reel in the shark. Check out the pics below of this amazing experience:



Once we got the shark close to the boat, Zane got a hold of the leader line and Rick was able to dislodge the hook and we released the shark. Rick estimates that the shark was about 85 kgs in size (~200 lbs). Thank goodness the mako didn't charge the boat and try to jump onto the deck (which they are sometimes known to do), as I wouldn't know what I would've have done. Zane says he would've made sure I was safe...right. Check out the pieces of kingie that were left after the mako shark:

It was another epic day of fishing, with lots of kingies, hapuka, terrakey and trumpeter fish. Everyone pulled in lots of good fish. We headed back to Hicks Bay late, and it took us longer with the stronger winds and currents, and we had a late dinner followed by immediate zzz's.

On Thursday morning, we had to start heading back to Whakatane, estimating another 10 hours or so back, with some trolling for fish along the way.

After brekkie, the boys started the big task of cleaning and filleting the fish that were kept. We also took a few more pics of the epic catches:


Along the way, we spotted some dolphins (adorable!) and tried to catch some tuna, but alas, our fishing luck had come to an end, but I got some photos of the dolphins swimming in our wake:


It took the boys almost 2 hours of filleting to get all the prime cuts of fish from all the catches that we actually kept.





We were happy to be back on solid ground, it's a day later and I'm still feeling a little wobbly. Will was the only one who didn't feel much effects of the sea (brat), and I realized that the main difference between this trip and previous ones was that we never set foot on ground in 3 days, whereas with other trips, they were either day trips (in Cabo) or we would anchor and go to land during the trip (during my high school week-long marine biology trip).

It's too bad that Will and I can't take any of the meat home, we'll do our best to feast on the fish as much as possible before we go, and John and Emily will be giving much of it away because they would be eating fish for months otherwise!

Thanks so much to Johnny for planning the trip, and a huge thanks to Rick and Zane for giving us an amazing experience. Rick is truly an amazing skipper and I would highly recommend a trip with him if you ever are in this neck of the woods.