Close to the end of my 5 week break from work, Easter seemed the perfect time to spin to the islands.
Unfortunately the weather, touch of the flu, and kids timetables worked against us and the planned saturday trip was brought forward to friday.

The weather would be marginal at best but a mate was going in his crayboat early afternoon so the fallback was to follow him over.
Launched 10am after laying in bed looking for an excuse not to go and watching the southerly out my window.

Fuck it, lets hit the road...
Took my 3 youngest only as the others had Country Week hockey etc.
Wasnt overly fussed about what fishing if any, had the great fortune to be guests of some very good friends with a roof over the kids heads for a change.

Got out of the marina and thought we'd head out Eves Passage and see what it was like then come back to the Fishing Boat harbour and wait for Kim to leave but after getting a mile out I looked back and thought bollocks lets just get moving.

Wasnt the roughest trip by a long shot but wasnt comfortable either, 20 kts southerly. A head cold plus a face full of spray made it a little unpleasant.

An hour and 40 later we pulled into the calm water to find Fisheries right up our ass. A "minor" issue to be sorted with them, will see how that plays out...
A quick troll in the arvo, pots in the water, very rough especially south of Long Island, couple of strikes and thats all.

Next day good 25-30kts, jerked the pots for more than we needed to feed 10 people and off trolling again.

BOOM double header of yellowfin in 5 minutes, Cam on one and Leah the other.
Lost one , landed one maybe 10kg

Back in with the lures, 15 minutes out into open water and another double header.
This time Leah and Mac worked hard for about 15 minutes while I tried to keep the boat steady in the trying conditions.
As they worked the fish in it looked as though they were tangled but turned out on lure in the mouth the other in the back!

Pulled into the Bity Holes braving the breakers across the entrance to have a rest, lunch and a breather.

Had one more strike but that was it for the arvo, back to the camp to chill out and scoff fresh tuna ent're and crays for dinner.

Next day knocked over a few jobs lined up around the camp and boats then spin out in to the washing machine for a troll again.

Another 25-30 knots but swell was up a fair bit now also, another couple of mackies to the kids then a 3rd which Cam worked all the way to the boat and I gaffed, slipped off the gaff and ran bleeding.

Peeled off 100 meters or more then got sharked I think, best lure gone.
That caused a fair bit of angst aboard with the kids ragging Cam which went down like a bacon sandwich in a mosque-Cam takes his fishing pretty seriously 

After 5 days, with flights to work looming I thought better head homeward.
First day with under 25 knots was tuesday so we had a short troll for nix then packed up and loaded and put pedal to the metal.

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