With a restless night of sleep from the short bunks to load snoring, everyone was feeling pretty worse for wear. Up at 6.30am to catch a glowing sunrise over Cuvier Island and the day was looking like it was going to be pretty good. The beauty of fishing some where like the island was that even though the wind was up, if you wanted to, you could find a protect bay to escape it.

Wes and I left the boat, had an explore around some of the caves and after the hot bite on the northern side decided that it would be our best bet to get into some Snapper quickly. We got around the corner and soon discovered that the wind was smashing through our chosen destination with a 2-3ft wind chop making for some very sporting paddling.

We pushed through to a rocky point, sent the drogues out which pulled us up nicely and began to flick away. We were instantly getting busted off by some absolute stonkers. 14lb leader and locked drags just weren’t cutting it, as we were unable turn the fish and stop them from making their run into the kelp. The reel would be screaming, then you would feel the braid rubbing through the kelp and if they didn’t tangle you up in that, they would definitely tow the kayak and make their way to reef. In between getting smashed by the unstoppables, a few “average” sized snapper were landed before Wes was able to pull a better specimen before the Pete and the Te Wairoa came around the corner to tell us to move to the other side of the island where Rob was apparently onto a good patch of 10-15 pounders.

So we made our way around to where Rob and the others were fishing in a sheltered bay and we really struggled only picking up the occasional fish and didn’t witness anyone else getting anything bigger than an Australian sized pannie. Disappointed with our move, Wes and I pushed out to the southern side of Cuvier back into the wind and found another patch holding in around 20 meters where I was able to pick up a better sized fish, but just under the size of what Wes picked up earlier. Hunger and a sore arse got the best of us and seeing the rest of the guys were already packed up, we started the drift back boat to get the obligatory photos for the guys from the magazines.

Pete moved the Te Wairoa over to Great Mercury Islands for the night to escape the bad weather that had moved in (40knot winds with driving rain) and it didn’t take long for a small bird called a Diving Petrel to cut it’s flight path too close to the boat and clipped some rods. Pete being pretty quick on his feet was all over it and grabbed it so we could have a look.

Some sashimi Skipjack was sliced up for a snack, then Wes decided to let the cat out of the bag about him being a chef and whipped together a delicious entrée of squid made with soy sauce and Pete’s partner’s Bev’s home made chilli jam, possibly the best tasting thing I’ve eaten in a while! Crumbed and shallow fried fresh snapper and veggies followed this up and a Bev’s home made Feijoa and and Apple sponge pie and a couple of rums to put us to sleep so we could be well rested for tomorrow.