Fishing Reports

OUR ANNUAL NATIONAL 8 DAY SPORTS FISHING ELDORADO.

Once a year the sports fishers of New Zealand get the chance to fish until they drop. This year the national tournament featured 1327 anglers fishing from 379 teams and representing 39 Clubs from around the country.

This contest is the real deal of sports fishing contests with points awarded according to the merit of the catch. Line weight relative to fish weight is the key element in determining the merit of a catch. So, a 7.445kg Albacore Tuna landed by Chris Richards of the Tautuku Fishing Club on 1kg line earned Chris a most meritorious 744.5 points. Similarly, a beast of a Big Eye Tuna of 106.2 kg landed by Whangaroa junior Steven James on 37kg line earned a relatively low score of 287.02 points.

Fished over the eight days ending on February the 24^th this year, apart from the fishing, the most outstanding feature of the 2007 tournament was the weather. While the first and last days were not quite so congenial, the middle six days were so fine that vessels were able to range far and wide in their search of that special fish. Probably mostly due to this great weather, history may well reveal the tournament as one of the best in recent years.

Benign sea conditions meant that many of the almost 250 striped marlin and 200 or so members of the tuna family entering the record books were hooked somewhere between Cape Reinga and the King or Middlesex Banks at 54 and 72 nautical miles north of New Zealand respectively. Interestingly, southern clubs such as the Waihau, based south of Whakatane, managed to find most of the sixteen big blue marlin that featured.

The contest has many facets so that individuals, clubs and teams are all able to accumulate points according to the merit formulae. This year the winning Club was the Tautuku Fishing Club with a total of 3620.00 points, followed up by our very own Bay of Islands on 2285.97 and Whakatane on 2094.54 points.

The following catches seemed worthy of a special mention: Tairua/Whakatane Club & David Hayward’s  211.3kg blue marlin on 24kg, Whakatane Club and David Kahlenberg's 110.4 kg stripey on 10kg, Clevedon Club and Barry Chibnall’s 13.5kg yellowtail on 4kg and NZ Land-based Club & Todd Michell’s 32.54kg yellowtail on 15kg. 

Some of the biggest fish of the tournament included Waihau Bay & Ian Philpott’s 296kg blue marlin, BOI & Dave Jackson’s 152kg Striped marlin, TeKaha and Paul Stewarts’s 196.4kg mako shark and Whangaroa & Shawn Putt’s 58.9kg yellowfin tuna.

Another set of interesting figures is always the tag and releases: 7 Blue Marlin; 191 Striped Marlin; 5 Shortbilled Spearfish; 100 Blue Sharks; 4 Bronze Whalers; 41 Makos; 153 Yellowtail and 5 Yellowfin Overall, were tagged and released. Overall, 465 fish were weighed with 506 tagged and released to live another day. Looks as close as you can get to a win-win for both us and the fish.