Well I can finally say after living and working offshore and not really having a winter for 9 years I have finally experienced a bad NZ winter, this year has been terrible, high winds have kept us a shore and really only letting us get to the Mokes once or if lucky twice a week.
This winter with the extremely cold water temps the surface schools of trevs and kahawhai are staying down deep, bite times have been shorter making patience the number one key to success.
Our daily game plan this winter is to fish the deeper pins with jigs and live baits and also fish the shallow areas slow trolling live baits and casting stickbaits. All our bigger fish this winter have been caught on stickbaits and surface trolled jack macs or kahawhai.
Yesterday we had a charter with a great bunch of 4 guys. Our game plan was to target the shallows around all the islands slow trolling live baits. Day started off well with a live well full to the brim with large jack macs and slimy mackerel from Bream bay. A quick 1 hour trip (26 knots) to our first destination and live baits were deployed. After dropping two baits in the water we got our first bite, this was not a solid bite and after a short run the line went slack, back around again and second run over the deeper schools of bait we got hit and after a scrappy fight our angler caught his first legal kingi at 14kgs.
Off to the second spot and second pass over some deeper bait in a good current line we were hooked up and this time the Stella 2000 was howling, normally its two half twits of the drag knob to set the hook and one more if its still peeling line to stop and average sized fish, but line was still peeling of freely and rod fully loaded, one more twist on the drag knob to try and stop this fish reefing us, after a dogged fight we dragged the fish out of the shallows into 35 meters of water and got a little under control and soon later we boated our anglers personal best kingfish at 31kgs (weighed on the boat 31-33kg).
Soon after this the bait pushed down deeper and the fish went off the bite. So now it was time to go to plan #2 and head out deep and try and get some fish on the deeper pins to finish the day. One drift saw us hooked to a double of Kingi around the 15-16kg size and next drift another same sized fish dropped.
Interesting that all the fish caught in the shallow water were in much better condition and had much higher fat content than the fish on the deeper pins.
Winter fishing can be challenging but at the same time very rewarding and a game a game plan and patience is two secrets to success to target Kingfish when the fishing seems slower.
Wicked way to spend a Friday with a great bunch of guys and just to top off a great day we had a smooth as ride back to Mangawhai Heads and 3 nice fish in the bin to smoke and feed the families.
And yes we are back to winter mode again today, raining and bloody windy!
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