Fishing Reports

Great spell of weather! Unfortunately the breeze was just a bit too fresh to give it a worthwhile shot today so I shall put pen to paper and fire out another report.

The Auckland channels have really slowed down now and the great run of fish that was had, has become more and more sporadic and there have even been a few stories of anglers catching a haul of the dreaded Zilch! If you are fishing these channels, I would suggest fishing the change of light and make sure the tide is running. I prefer the early morning to the evening as the in the evenings it is only going to get darker and often the fishing will stop once it’s dark. The early mornings I find better as it is only going to get lighter and the fishing can often improve in the few hours after sunrise.

The Noisies, Maria Island, David Rocks and the Ahahaas will be worth a shot if you can get the wind and tide together and set yourself up away from the traffic with a good berley trail. Again the change of light is probably the best time to target Snapper and during the day for the Kingfish that are still around the area. The Kingfish are mostly small specimens that should be released to grow and spawn in future years. If you find you are “gut hooking” the Kingfish, why not change the style of hook you are using to a circle style hook as these tend to lip hook or hook the fish in the corner of the mouth making for easy hook removal and less damage to the fish. They can then be released with minimal damage and have a decent chance of survival.

Some of the reefs out here are home to shellfish like Mussels and these can make excellent baits along with good quality NZ Pilchards and Squid.

Tiri is producing a few good Snapper but these are starting to get harder to find and it is the deeper reefs that are producing best when the fish decide to bite. There are a few really good John Dory about and these are being targeted and caught using small Mackerel, live baits on a ledger rig. The ledger rig or similar rig seems to be best when targeting the Dorys as it keeps the live bait on a “short leash’ therefore making it easy prey for the Dory. There is a lot of bird activity north of the Tiri channel but only small Snapper are coming out of a berley trail. The best method in this situation is to drift fish the area. Drifting allows a lot of ground to be covered and the moving baits can often attract the attentions of the larger fish. Strayline rigs and ledger/flasher rigs work well with the strayline rig allowing a bigger bait to be presented more naturally.

Motuora Island still has the odd Kingi lurking around the fringes as do the other islands nearby. The entrance to the Mahurangi Harbour and around Saddle Island were fishing quite well for “pan size” Snapper but it was the change of light that worked best. It can be a great place to fish with lighter gear in the shallows for Snapper, Kahawai, Trevally and Kingfish.

Flat Rock has finally started to hold a few more fish but it seems to work best on the smaller tides (3.0m or less) and I am finding the deeper reefs and guts to be best. It is a huge area, with an extensive reefs system running to the south east of the rock. Kingfish can be targeted around the rock and on and around the “pins” that come as close as 10m to the surface out of 40m of water. Bottom set live baits can secure Kingfish and Dory but it is the drift fishing that I prefer again covering the ground. We had a spectacular display of cheap fishing gear flying apart under pressure the other day. We were anchored close to the rock and a straylined Pilchard was taken on the way down by either a Shark or Kingi. When the reel (spinning reel) was engaged the bail arm snapped off and the line caught in the resulting loops of line and bent the spool and mainshaft, resulting in the fish busting off and the angler turning the air blue! You can’t hunt Elephants with a pee shooter!

Out wider in the Gulf is predominately where I have been fishing, with pretty good results I might add. Little Barrier has been getting better and better and I have been favouring the deeper reefs and pins in the area. Drifting some of the deeper foul has rewarded us with Snapper to 8 kg this week and a few good Kingfish. There is plenty of small Kingfish (10kg or less) around still but the bigger fish are there and worth targeting. There are a few Terahiki about too and these fine table fish can be targeted by reducing hook size down to a 2/0 recurve style hook and using pieces of shellfish, squid or Bonito for baits. Keep the baits small and if you get plagued by small Snapper and reef fish, move on and try a different spot.

There have been some big Trevally and Snapper coming out of the shallows but the style of fishing we use to target these bigger fish can only be done successfully with a small group, willing to put in the effort and concentration. If you snooze- you lose. Fishermen catch fish, not rod holders.

We have started our “Winter Barrier Escapes” this month and we have an excellent vessel and Skipper taking 2, 3, 4 or 5 day trips out to Great Barrier. It can really be a top place to target the bigger fish and it provides a diverse winter fishery. At the moment, the place is just starting to fire up and as the cooler weather comes along so will some excellent fishing out here.

The Mokes is about 50 miles from our base at Gulf Harbour and only about 2 hours away in the right weather. There is a multitude of species available to anglers in a range of different fishing scenarios. You can fish the deep reefs (over 100m deep) on the drift or anchored or to the other extreme in close amoung the reefs and kelp lines. On the right day (and no, I don’t know when that day is yet) a world record fish could come from this area. It is quite remote and the weather plays a big part in our successes out here.

We have spaces available for a huge range of trips over the next month so give us a call if you’d like to get out for the day, either as a casual angler joining one of our groups or with a group of your own.

Contact us on (09) 4240607, the boats (021) 2446346 or email us at deepsea@clear.net.nz

I look forward to fishing with you.

Cheers,

Damian

The Charter Connection – where fishing is catching!