Headed up north to Henderson Bay with Bounty Hunter early Sunday morning. In the water by 10.30am, out by 4pm. Great shorey, open water with reefs out a couple of 100m with depths to 10m. Brained a 4kg within the first few minutes sitting out off the sand on the end of a ledge, nice. BH's 1.3m gun blasted a JD feeding on schooling kahawai. Plenty of baitfish around. I even stumbled across my first Black Spotted Grouper, sitting outside its hole before rapidly departing. We both managed to spook snaps in the 18-20lb range, I'd love to say due to the poor light, but just one of those days. Plenty of juvenile packie crays around, but no keepers. Anyhow, we each took a couple of good snaps, I added a couple of butters in for the daughter, a cray, and shot a JD upon return to the beach. Roast pork $13 special at the Takeaways ended day one. Monday, Matai Bay. I swam across to the entrance of Waikato Bay. Plenty of snapper around, baitfish and lots of weedlines, but no current. With the sun to the east - not the best recipe and snaps to 5kg watched floating away... schooled by juvenile kings, kahawai with snapper below. On the way back I managed another first. I noticed this big shape with four paddles 12m below in the murk. Surely not? A turtle? Dived down, and swam over. A nice size, reckon the shell was a good 1.5m long. Watched her drift away, very cool. A minor navigational error on my part added another 2k to my swim and 1k hill climb back to the car park. Managed to spook four female pheasants on the way out, and a happy male pheasant. BH picked off an 8kg from three big fish off a deep wall, one of those "ah, I'll give it a go" efforts and a couple of other snaps. I really like Matai Bay. Will probably go back, but devoid of current (potentially due to low tide) meant the weedlines were dead. Good times, home by 7pm - Snoop