Last week’s hit song; “we all live in a yellow submarine, yellow submarine, and we live beneath the rain in a yellow submarine.” This was too easy, never have I seen such voluminous rain tanks that were virtually refilled over 24hours.
The Zane Grey Caribbean Boats International Tournament 2017 Day 1 is underway! Tournament Stats 33 Strikes, 23 Hookups, 17 Fish, Weighed – 3 Yellowfin Tuna, 2 Striped Marlin, 2 Blue Marlin. 10 striped marlin were tagged & released. Endeavour tagged and released a striped marlin this morning using a Satellite Tag and as such have become the first boat in New Zealand to enter in the IGFA Great Marlin Race. This will return valuable information on the marlin that visit our waters. Stay tuned for more Zane Grey updates. Highest Scoring Angler – Tag points is Murray Hansen on Absolute with 1300 points. Highest Scoring Team, Absolute with 1999.58 points. Team Points; Runner up Team – 2rd Place Back in Black with 1495.13 points. Second Runner up Team – 3rd Place is Anchorage with 1,000 points. Heaviest Billfish – Dylan White (a junior) on Night Hawk II with a Blue Marlin at 203.7kg. 2nd Heaviest Billfish – Leighton Haliday on Back in Black with a Blue Marlin at 183.2kg. 3rd Heaviest Billfish – Simon Paterson on Strike III with a 124.5 Striped Marlin. CALCUTTA – To the successful bidder of the boat with the heaviest qualifying Marlin with a cash prize of $5,945 goes to Rod Haines with a successful bid for Night Hawk 2 .
From Whangamata 18-03-2017 – trailer boat Ocean Prowler with angler Tom Menefy bought to scale a blue marlin weighing in at 279.2kg caught on 37kg with skipper Mark Menefy. The comment about a job well done may have been heard.
Far North Radio manager Annette Hall was left stunned tonight when she was presented with a car by Clayton Murray & Andrew Archibald from Archibald Motors in Kaitaia. In one of the best kept secrets ever, the new car has been sign written and has a VHF radio on board. The vehicle has been warranted and rego’d and will continued to be serviced by Archibald Motors. Annette was side swiped while receiving thank you flowers tonight at the final prizegiving awards during the 2017 One Base. The car was driven down to the front of the club while Annette had her back to the window. The look of shock when she turned around was one we will never forget! A totally awesome gesture for an amazing volunteer. Way to go Archibald Motors.
Final Prizegiving 11 March 2017 – On behalf of the Houhora One Base committee a big thank you to all the anglers that fished the 2017 Houhora One Base this year. To our sponsors, thank you so much for your support. A huge thank you to our wonderful group of volunteers and MC James Tattersall, you guys are awesome. The weather was unkind this year and out of control! All the same we had 75 boats and 221 anglers, still one of the biggest and best on the northern coasts, with some travelling many miles to be here. Full credit to those that went out anyway, you are made of serious stuff. Congratulations to all the winners. This year there were 2 blue marlin & 2 striped marlin weighed, 3 tagged & released billfish, 17 tagged & released sharks, 1 kingfish, 1 mahimahi, 4 albacore and 4 snapper. Angler Heaviest Snapper – 1st Jake Spiers ‘Shall We’ 7.2 kg. Angler Heaviest Tuna _ 1st James Boag ‘Backlash’ Albacore 9.72 kg. Angler Heaviest Kingfish – 1st Dale Thompson ‘Dorian 2’ 14.98 kg. Tag & Release Shark – Lucky Draw. Angler Most Tagged & Released Billfish – 3 anglers won each lucky draw, Winner Michael Erceg. Angler Heaviest Billfish not including Striped Marlin $10,000 cash, 1st James Boag on ‘Backlash’ with a 227.4kg Blue Marlin. Angler Heaviest Striped Marlin $10,000 cash, 1st Sean Frieling ’Sherman’ 132.4 kg. Team Prize $1000 Hunting & Fishing Vouchers – 1st ‘Backlash. Skippers Prize, Ellis Utting Trophy – Mark Gill ‘Backlash’. Brian McDonald Memorial Trophy for heaviest striped marlin, Sean Frieling ‘Sherman’ and Electronic Navigation Trophy for top scoring club Ahipara 4368. Finally West vs East Trophy – Rivalry between teams on the East Coast verses teams on the West Coast. West coast wins with a lot of effort from the Ahipara teams with 1676 points. Weigh Station Club Trophy – Most Marlin Tagged n Released by Club, 1st equal Ahipara, Houhora & Muriwai. Angler Elimination Draw, Archibald Motors tyre draw winner; Adam Henderson ‘Off the Hook’.
A glowing report from Raglan – Well I guess we did what we set out to do. Been on my mind for a couple years now wanting to be the first to bring in a sword at Raglan. Always thought one of the big boys in their bigger boats would beat me to it, but we managed to tick that of the to do list last night. First time out at the Mokau trench, some 54nm or 100km from Raglan, first sword hunt out west and at 2am we had the shallow bait get hit hard with a couple blistering surface runs then going deep and coming back up and jumping like a mako doing a flip. Unfortunately, it’s tail got sharked, so won’t go down in any record books, but still felt damn good and a huge sense of achievement. Great team work with Jamie Ross at night made it interesting but we got there in the end!!! Yeeow team “MINDORO” rocks!
Two further west coast blues to report – one on “Latitude” to angler Grant Greenville weighing in at 202.2kg caught on 37, and the second off “No Limits” to angler Brad Chapman weighing in at 231.1kg also on 37. Both caught on the 18-03-2017.
Last words from Te Kaha – angler Jim Tamblin with Skipper Brendon Scott fishin on the “Joint Venture” landed and weighed a 251.8kg blue marlin, after having to raise it from the bottom, well done lads.