After two months of insane fishing we have finally experienced a couple of tougher trips in the past week – an issue compounded by the arrival of some fresh north-easterly blows. But hey, we love a good challenge!

The largest concentrations of bait have been the large mackeral schools in the southern Kawau Island area, a few pilchard schools north of D'Urville Rocks, and some surface kahawai schools hanging around in deep water off the top of Coromandel. It's a no-brainer that snapper will be hanging around under these bait schools. Nevertheless, there is also some decent fishing to be had doing long drifts around the 40m mark, although sometimes patience is required before you hit a good run of fish and multiple hook-ups!

Our weekend calendar is booking up quickly and with corporate weekday trip requests also coming in fast, we recommend that you get in touch soon if you want to get out there with us before Santa comes around.

Captain Nick Jones & Captain George Bourke

Hauraki Express