Groper Fishing, Marlborough Sounds.

My World.
Groper Fishing.
Erle went out groper fishing in the Marlborough Sounds, with his fishing club.
12 Men had a great day out on the open ocean in quite rough rolling seas.
They managed to catch 4 reasonable sized Groper on a long line, along with assorted other species. They also caught the quota of Blue Cod on their rods, so they came came home with a good lot of lovely fresh fish.
The photo shows the long line being pulled in, on to the boats deck.
Erle took the photo for me.

Erle's Fishing trip

My World.
Erle's Fishing Trip.
Erle was up bright and early and away to collect some of his fellow fishermen by 6am then he drove the hour long drive to Havelock Marina to catch the fishing boat 'Stevo'.
It was still very dark at 7am with thick a blanket of fog blocking out all view, which made it quite dangerous navigating out of the Harbour down the narrow dredged channel at low tide. The Skipper, Roger, had to rely on the navigation lights and his radar. But soon the sun rose and a breeze blew the fog away and although the sea was a bit rough and choppy they steamed for 2 hours to get to the open sea where the fishing ground for groper is, several red billed sea Gulls hitched a ride with them.
Unfortunately none of the fishermen managed to hook and land one of the huge gropers that dwell in the deeps in this point, but many lovely large blue Cod were landed, and by time to leave the full quota of Cod had been caught; 3 large fish each which were strung on flax to bring home for wives to like me to clean and fillet! Lots of other species of fish were also caught and the Skipper filleted them on the return journey, so we were had lots of already filleted fish for our dinner that night and after I filleted the three fish from the flax string I had lots to freeze for later.
I gave my precious digital camera to Erle so he could take some nice photos for me to add to this blog. As he had never used it before I wasn't sure what the photos would be like or even if there would be any, but he did well I am pleased with these fishing photos he took.

A lucky break.

How lucky is this!
A big Blue Cod.
A huge crayfish
or lobster.




This afternoon my Husband Erle, went for a walk down the wharf to watch the fishing boats come in, just for a nice afternoon stroll by the sea.






A man called out to him, 'would you like some fish, mate. we have caught plenty' Erle was over joyed to say yes he would love some, any would be lovely. The fisherman generously handed him a very large Blue Cod and a nice size Crayfish! Carrying them home was a bit difficult as he had no bag to put them in, but he managed to carry them ok. I was so pleased to see him come home with some fish, I quickly cooked the crayfish for our dinner, and set about filleting the large blue Cod, took me a while cause the fishermen had gutted the fish, that makes it much harder to fillet, but it was surely worth it! We shall have two meals from the fish.