Fishing Reports

The fishing around the gulf is still pretty patchy, probably a lot to do with the water temperatures still in many place in the mid to high 16’s.

 The fish are certainly schooling in their usuall places and many are rowed up ready to go, one feels that it wont be long now till we have a big bite before they spawn.

Whangaparoa bay, and the middle ground between Tiri And Rakino Island is fishing well on both tides. Small cut baits of Pilchard and bonito seem to work better than the big baits, an aussie stray line rig is also the best rig at present-sinker above the swivel this will allow the bait to float of the bottom slightly were it can be easily picked up.

The kingfish have also started to show up. We tried casting teasers (poppers with no hooks in them) around several of the channel marker buoys recently for a bit of fun & discovered several had small kings under them. Shearers rock also had fish on it, with a couple of fish chasing the popper looking like quite decent sized fish.

The deeper water out the back of Tiri and Kawau Island has been one of the few bright sparks over recent weeks, chasing the big schools of pillies that are being herded up by dolphins, whales and blasted apart by the birds on the surface. Those fortunate enough to come across these workups have been very lucky.........the carnage caused above leaves a burley trail for the scavenging snapper. It doesn’t seem to matter what you drop under these work ups the feeding snapper below just scoff it down. Boats that are lucky enough to come across these work ups are being treated to an unbelievable few hours of fishing.

Zeno rock is fishing reasonably well on the change of light, fresh bait such as Jack mackerel or squid are working the best. If you can get the tides just right on the change of light and fish the hour before and after high water, some very good snapper are to be had here. Casting these fresh baits out with no weight on them has seen the best results.

Till next week good luck, hope to see you out on the water

Tight lines

Terry