Fishing Reports

 

Although some big snapper are being caught in The Bay, the action is hardly fast and furious. Our own action over the weekend included 5 fish over 15lb from the area around Mita's Foul, caught on lightly weighted straylines with whole squid, or pillies as bait. 4 of these big fish were lip hooked, reflecting the tentative nature of the bite. The fastest actionn was from deeper 65M water out from Whale Rock, with plenty of pan snapper and terakihi taking small baits fished on ledger rigs. Let's just hope the weather stays calm enough to enable access to the deeper sites to continue. After providing some great catches in close, the hapuka seem to have moved on, with even reliable areas like Main Rock providing little action, but seemingly as compensation there are plenty of bluenose on the trench areas between main Rock and the Nine Pin trenches, though fishing in 270M to 300M is not everyone's cup of tea. Water temperature out wide has improved dramatically, with our highest reading being 19C while chasing the bluenose. Plenty of surface action surrounded us, with big work ups of Peruvian Mackerel and frequent sunfish sightings. Seine pursers have been working the area, probably chasing the mackerel. The peruvian mackerel look like a giant jack or yellowtail mackerel, without the yellow markings, and a more elongated body. There were also some as yet unconfirmed encounters with marlin, which doesn't seem surprising given the feed that is obviously available. Barracoutta continue to make life difficult around our best kingfish spots, though we did catch one nice 10kg fish while chasing the pan snapper outside Whale Rock. Hopefully the week will allow a chance for another early deep water trolling expedition, which will allow us something positive to report on the blue water scene soon. As always drop me a line at MAJOR.TOM@xtra.co.nz if you need some more info, or have something interesting to share.

 

From Major Tom II

Report type: Saltwater

Report date: 25 November 02