Sat 23rd Jan, 16. Up at 5am, the Pakiri Murphy reared his ugly head - the dishwasher leaked all over the floor. This was repaired at 5.28am using a combination of duct tape, beach towels and profanities. Doris and Snoop first to hit the warm waters off Little B weedline at 07:18. Working against the current swimming west toward the boat parked 13 nautical miles away by Crockett they soon found action in the murky 8m vis off the line. A bullet like tuna cruised below me, this was it, the moment. He skilfully leveled off, and for glory, hit him hard down through the back of the head, secured. Yes!!! But the parade, the medals, the titles, the NZ Woman's Weekly Exclusive.... all blew up in smoke, when Snoop realized to his horror, he had, in fact, shot a sizable shark. Whoops. This brought in a rather large kingy. Snoop for 5 seconds considered yanking the shark up, dispatching it, re-loading the shaft and landing the big king, but instead, selflessly screamed to Doris to take it out. Doris declined - but watched Snoop's back all the skull-dray way back into to shore. Totally Team America Some handy team work from Doris soon had our toothy friend groggily making his way back to the blue. Moral of the story. If you want to attract sharks shoot kingies. But if your really smart, shoot a shark, even better get your mate to, and the kingies will come. We gave up counting the number of sharks and rays that cruised under us on our slog back to the boat Navy Seal and Kingie had had a miserable dive in the murk. Off to Horn. Kingie shot one of his namesakes, amongst the fields of kahawai, trevally and bronzies. T'was a big current. Doris was planted (at speed from the back of the boat) on our new pin, "Marline Rock" and turned down a shot on a 25kg (he missed) torpedo. We had Kingie on the back of the boat when Navy Seal and Snoop spotted what we both reckoned was a marlin white water it through a big workup. Unfortunately, a combination of slow speed from Snoop (fear of chopping Kingie's legs off at the back of the boat) and the school descending meant we couldn't get Crockett in the water in time - oh, so very very close.... Off to Great Barrier and Navy Seal, Kingie and Doris snooped South of the Brokens. Snoop - was unceremoniously dumped on an island by himself, in a galaxy, far, far away. Choice. Yates - stuffed nasal passage, had a casual dive down the coast, nearly nabbing a big snap below the boat. Snoop - bagged a big boary in 3m of water, then brained a couple of snapper and a trev. After lunch Doris got sharked, then got beaten up by a big bronzie. Crockett took Snoop's advice and reversed the boat, allowing Doris to swim a further 50m to the boat - building the true character of a budding Axeman. A kingie head was towed in, shark following to the boat. Choice. Next stop - Crockett's cray chiller in the Brokens, but not before Snoop talked Doris and Seal into a Broken Islands tropical 23 degree - crystal clear water sojourn. Man - it was choice. So very choice. Vis was maybe 20m, plenty of kingies around and both Seal and Snoop both spooked boaries. Big smiles and lots of hunting to be had. Snoop stalked the weedline in pursuit of one and sure enough 30 minutes later spotted a piggie gingerly making its way along the line. Going into stealth mode, turned off the "body tension" and kept the head "looking away" watching through the side of the mask its ever so slow progress down the line. Act chilled. Gently, subtly drifting toward and hopefully behind its eye line, it was veering dangerously toward the start of the open sand patch - causing no doubt, a bolt action. It was now or never, so quietly descended, mask filling with water, compensating, sent a hail Mary, spining it. Just huge porae everywhere, reckon one was close to 9kg, mocking our absent Club Captain. Just huge! Doris, shot a kingie, tied it off in the shallows, then lost it again. Kingie Crockett was not impressed. Advice was offfered from the boat. Accepted. Kingy found. More advice offered afterward. Horn was dead, so Seal and Snoop suntanned (burnt) on the boat while our Kingy heroes shot giant ocean going Kermadec kahawai. Top day out. Awesome weekend. Feel like a tyre re-tread today, but oh, sooo worth it.. - Snoop