b'CHARTER FISHING Bait fish lit up the bottom and we found a nice concentration that could have puka hanging around them. Drifting through the area with dropper rigs, 8-20oz sinkers and a double offering of bullet tuna and squid, we were quite optimistic as this was the place and time puka had shown up the year before.Mikes Okuma rod bent over, and he started the long haul up to the surface. It looked really promising until a tail-wrapped school shark appeared. This is the downside of deep dropping, a lot of work for a species that is scorned upon identification on the surface. Mike dispatched and re-deployed and hooked up again.Mike repeated the winding process as I also hooked something, I must have hooked its mate as we drifted over some fish. This time Mike had a pup puka and my fish unfortunately got sharked on the way up. Must have been a puka muttered Johnny. I couldnt quite figure out if he said it to console me or have a friendly dig at losing a nice fish. Still, the sight of the target species certainly had the crew bubbling with enthusiasm and refocusing their attention on their braid and rod tips for potential puka bites.The sight of the target species certainly had the crew bubbling with enthusiasm and refocusing their attention Snapper were picking up baits whenon their braid and rod tips for drifting deep as Simon discovered. potential puka bites.ADVENTURE TIMEWe were off in the pitch black and stopped around the Noises to try for some livies, but they werent awake at that hour, so we turned our bow for the Colville Channel and put the hammers down on the big V8 Mercury. The forecast was for a calmer afternoon but on the ride out there was a bit of chop, as daylight crept over the horizon we sped through the gap between Cape Barrier and Port Jackson. Our wake disturbed a large flying fish that took to the air from the 16-degree water. Thats a first seeing a flying fish in winter. Hopefully, we would see other pelagic species on our trip, which would be exciting. We arrived at the first set of marks out wide off the top of the Coromandel and started watchingSimon hooked up to a solid fish the sounder, hunting for puka sign inwhich gave him a good fight but deeper water. turned out to be a shark.12FISHING IN GODZONE SEP/OCT 2022'