Last year the weather was ugly, and we said we were due for good conditions this year.

Apparently it doesn’t work like that!

3 days out and 39 knots with gusts of over 50 was the forecast. Although it didn’t turn out quite that extreme on the weekend, it was still pretty wild and the forecast had a big impact on our participation for this years event. Not having ourselves as organised as in the past to run an EarlyBird probably didn’t help numbers either. But 49 anglers still went out and had a great time in sheltered waters and consistently caught good fish.

This years event was our first fully ‘measured’ 10kg. The format of taking a pic on a measurer and then choosing whether to release or keep the fish is well established in our other events. It was a natural step to make the 10kg the same.
Saturday.

Over the years most people have had a memorable session of multiple big fish. Being able to quickly record and release big fish takes the pressure off banging any of them on them on the head. And it sure is nice coming home with some fillets, some heads and frames already in their smoking mixture, and some photographs. Not a big chillybin full of fish that you have to process after weighing in. Letting good and/or excess fish swim away and still being in for prizes is a win-win.

Our main sponsors Mercury and Matakana Marine generously supplied an 8 and a 3.3hp outboard engine for our major prizes—that’s $4k+ of motivation right there! Mercury T shirts and other goodies all went to happy recipients. Thank you Aaron & Matt. ITM Matakana consistently chip in with clothing and other surprises—Thanks James and Shane.

Making sure our prize spend dollar goes a very long way is Colin from Hunting and Fishing in Warkworth. Thank you Colin for a varied and significantly sponsored array of rods, reels, nets, clothing, tackleboxes, etc. And FogDog has become a 10kg institution—thank you Andrew for the box of goodies. Our caterer enjoyed using your super reliable batters…