Fishing Reports

 

Well, it’s been a long (read that frustrating) season and it’s finally drawing to a close. Despite a few bright spots, some great weather and high hopes it doesn’t look like our late season prophecy will come to fruition. In spite of poor marlin fishing, the rest of the prevalent species have been more than obliging. Just as well since they’ve had to take a lot of pressure under this season’s circumstances. Rather than go by area as is the normal format, we’ll look at individual species and their relative availability this time. Striped Marlin Been tough for weeks now, despite a good bunch of weather and plenty of boats looking for them in many places. Marlin have been seen, hooked and landed in several spots but not in any abundance whatsoever. Garden Patch, Pins (335), The Hook, Compass Rose, King and Middlesex Banks have been the most recent areas of interest. The last known catch was made by “Primetime” on the “Hook” (6 June). This 100 kg fish was a special tag and release since it represents the vessels 100th capture; a great statistic in a difficult year. The owner/skipper John Gregory took his wife out for their wedding anniversary and she repaid him with this catch. Well done on another great season, “Primetime”. While there may well be more marlin captures this season, there won’t be many. Water colour is brilliantly blue in most areas but temperature lacking. 17 degrees in most locales which is plenty good enough but precious few fish. Maybe we’ll just have to concede this has been one of “those” seasons? Broadbill Swordfish After the tremendous World Record catch onboard “Major Tom II” with skipper Geoff Stone at the helm, there have been more bright spots. “Harlequin”, skippered by John Batterton, boated two BB. First one represented a national record claim by a woman on 60 kilo tackle. The next one, even larger, was tagged and released. Onto the hard luck stories comes Mrs Gregory who boated “Primetimes” 100th marlin. In a record attempt on only 24k gear, she lost a fish well over the existing record size after a 6 ½ hour battle. Hard luck. Congratulations to Geoff Stone and “Major Tom II” on an excellent season overall. Yellowtail Kingfish When all else fails, good ole kingi usually comes to the party and this part of the season has been no exception. The islands west of Cape Karikari have been productive with slow trolling live baits the best go. Most of the fish are 12 to 17k’s, some pushing 25 kilos. Up at the Kings they are far more prevalent and larger on average. Both Banks plus the Prince’s Group have delivered although oversized barracouta have gotten in the way at times. Sure indication of cooler waters. Kingfish – long live our most valuable resident gamefish. Snapper They too, have produced very well up and down the coast with some real beauties among the average sized fish. Doubtless Bay has been among the most consistent with great fishing within five miles of Mangonui Wharf. Other areas of exceptional productivity have been Parengarenga Harbour entrance, North Cape and Spirits Bay. NZ’s favourite seems to be in its prime at present with trophy fish over 15 lbs relatively commonplace. Deepwater Bass and hapuka excel as bluenose wane. Some large (40 kilos plus) bass showing up now with the females heavily laden with roe. Lots of nice eating fillets in a relatively short period of time for those interested. Look at 140-200m plus as the most productive depths. Summary With only several boats finishing up their season there’s little chance for big revelations at this point. With just one trip remaining before heading back to home base in the BOP we’ll have one report remaining – hope it will read well.

 

From Pursuit

Report type: Saltwater

Report date: 15 June 03