Fishing Reports

Gamefishing has continued to be  red hot here with good colour and temps, and the best Blue Marlin fishing Whitianga has ever seen.   Every other day or so, if the conditions are fishable, has seen Blue Marlin come to the scales ranging from 200-280 kilos, with Striped marlin coming in on a daily basis.  Last count the club had ten blues already - amazing considering last season we got  only  one for the whole season.!!!

Yellowfin have all but disappeared  from our area, other than the odd one- and one of which was over 50 kgs.   Still a few large Albacore as well but getting too hot for them now.

There has been very little bait out where the billfish are and  there is a feeling that other than eating large albacore, that the fish are having a hard time of it. They could well move on if bait stays scarce- Thanks Sanfords for trying to scoop it all up!!!

Kingfish are plentiful around almost all rocky headlands, but in the foul you will need heavy tackle to stop them . I have a Japanese client who uses almost exclusively braid  for Kingis and snapper,  and the stuff is very impressive in the heavy foul, just coping so much better without bust -offs.

Snapper typically hard going during the day - see January reports - but ok dawn and dusk. Some bigger fish 8-11 kgs coming in now  more regularly. Use big baits if you think those fish are there. The fish we are cutting up now are post spawn, so could be the start of improving overall snapper fishing-  Try 40 metres out on sand or low foul.

Good Luck!!!

Andy Kerr-Stingray Charters