Fishing Reports

January has started with a spazmotic hiss and a roar for the Tairua-Pauanui area. Fishing reports have been better than that of some previous years although the real hot gamefishing is yet to come.

Gamefishing

The Tairua Pauanui Sports Fishing Club has weighed two marlin for the new year and also had one tagged and released. Whilst the marlin are here catches reportably are coming from a large area with no where in particular being exceptionaly better than the other. Reportably the 150-250 metre line behind the Alderman Islands through to just north of the Sugar Loaf rocks seems to be providing the most regular reports of marlin action. Blue water appeared to have snuck in and around the Aldies a week ago with around 21 degree being common, however it may have cooled a bit with this weekend showing more around 20.0 - 20.5. Also there appears to be a good number of bait schools appearing around this area so keep an eye on the sounder.
Tuna had been around in good numbers with one hitting the club scales at 36.6 kg. Howver the numbers of these seem to have declined according to catch reports. Workups with gannets and dolphins are being common place inside the Alderman-Castle line however there doesn't appear to be any number of pelagics with them as yet.
Albacore are still a common catch on those smaller lures however those 10kg plus specimans seem to have headed east with much smaller sized catches being reported.

Snapper and Kingfish

The odd snapper over 10lb is still around for those putting the time in, reports have the reefs North of Shoe doing reasonably well considering the hammering they get over the Christmas/New Year period. Fish appear to be firing later in the day with Kingfish over 10kg and snapper over 5kg in amongest the activity on some of the rocks. Additionaly some of the snapper have excellent roes in them.
Also the Seventy Metre Reef North of the Sugar Loaves and its surrounding area also has a good number of large kingfish in it. Whilst the odd boat has had Kings loading up on two or three marlin lures at a time as bycatch, best results are coming from jigging with fish around 15kg being common. One report saw the angler busted off numerous times on 50lb gear whilst using knife jigs to great affect. Also the spearfishing guys are doing really well with fish around 20kg being wieghed over the last weekend.

Up & Coming

Whilst the weather report for the early part of this week is rather sad, the upside is that it may bring some better water in, along with better numbers of pelagics. There will alot of boats around the area this coming weekend and also the Tairua Pauanui Sports Fishing Cub's Okuma Stand-up Fishing Tournament is running Saturday and Sunday over Auckland Anniversary weekend. Be sure to enter so you can collect some excellent prizes for that big catch. Hopefully this will bring reports of the gamefishing action hotting up in earnest.

Tight Lines, Scotty Robinson
027 4105450 / mrfatdog@gmail.com