Fishing Reports

Gamefishing

Just when we thought things might be tapering off here, after a period of inclement and predominantly cooler weather, our latest forays ,and those of others have proved very exciting,and confirm that we are mid season still, rather than later season.

Only 2 weekends ago , yet another blue was weighed here at 189 kg, and 2 more caught out from here, but weighed elsewhere, which I believe were in the mid 250's or more.

Then Monday before last , we found a mussel farm big black buoy, covered in barnacles, floating at the 250m mark NE of Red Mercury Island, and our first pass produced a quadruple of Mahi mahi, the biggest going 12.5 kilos !!!

Plenty of Skippies in 80-100 and 150 -200m all along the coast, but better water closer in up the northern end.

Bottom Fishing

We had a much earlier start to the good snapper season than last year- with it hitting off in Feb, rather than the late shocker last year in April.

Bigger snapper are being caught in 5 metres or so if you want to use heavy tackle, a must to get them back out of the kelp. A lot of small to mid size fish everywhere depthwise, with 15 - 40m  being the most consistent.

Saturday's trip saw us come back with 20 or so fish between 1.5 and 3.5 kilos, after letting go quite a few others, and all this in a horrible South Easterly that really precluded us going anywhere good at all.!! On a good day you can expect much better than that, or target bigger fish around the likes of Double, Stanley, Red and Middle etc.

Whole squid got the best fish on the strayline, with Skippy and fresh Kahawai doing the work on the cut baits.

Try and be there in late afternoon or dusk if you can and get in some current.

Kingfish , although often small, are everywhere and big baits are needed to get through to the bigger fish, or big 400 gram knife jigs.

Good Fishing,

Andy Kerr