Grunta wrote: Schools of Maccas in the bay and with the settled weather there's been some really good kingi action without going too far at all. The location of the schools is pretty obvious simply by the number of boats and the charter guys are onto it so keep an eye out for them. Lots of kings around the 90cm mark and we managed to get a double yesterday and then my daughter Lana nailed one just on 1m ~13kg according to the weight/length chart. All 3 were released as we'd kept one the day before. What seems to work for me is to get a bait (just one) straight back down when you get your first livie or two. I'm using 60lb fluoro leaders and 9/0 trokar circles with 15m a topshot of 10kg mono on 30 or 50lb braid for anyone who hasn't done a lot of fishing and rather than holding the rod, just leave it in the rodholder on strike which is set @ about 3kg. Some will say to hold the rod but I've seen too many inexperienced anglers strike on a bite (even when you tell them it's the last thing they should do) and pull the bait out of the king's mouth. I generally don't use any weight in the bay unless there quite a lot of drift. You need to give the other boats some clearance and lead your fish away from the fleet once hooked obviously. A few people have been slow trolling around the schools with a couple of baits quite a distance behind them and that really doesn't work for anyone as if they hook up, there too much line out and too many opportunities for the hooked king to wreck havoc amongst the other boats. It's great fun and for more experienced anglers on some lighter gear, quite challenging when the snapper fishing can be slow in the area at this time of year. Further out there's good numbers of kings too and a slow trolled livie is worth a crack... There's reasonable snapper fishing at 50-55m straight out of the bay atm and softbaits and kaburas seem to be working well. They are hard on the bottom and reasonably scattered so if there's not much sign then don't panic - they'll be there and make sure you're there at Bitetime! Over the hill there's been a bit of action out in the puddle. Early morning and evenings seem to be the go and some good old-fashioned bait and burley just off the Kuaotunu reef is worth a shot if you can get there for sunrise. On the gamefishing front, a nice bigeye tuna caught yesterday at 850 off the footprint and the same boat hooked and lost a stripey on the way in. Another stripey tagged in 145m out on Middle ground. Few crays about but no great numbers and just a matter of covering the territory. 10-20m is good depth range to work. You can still get a feed of scollies out at the cove or Opito but fair to say those areas have had a hiding. The commercial boys ploughed Opito right into their allowed zone early December so no point in going outside those lines and inside that, just a matter of finding an area that's not been hammered by divers. |
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