Fishing Reports

The bumper season for the Bay of Islands and Tutukaka Clubs continues, despite some cold and grotty weather over the last week.

The better water has moved out beyond the 200M line, but with boats ranging wider, a good sprinkling of blues has been caught. Two fish over 220kg were landed during the Baileys tournament last week, and the weekend saw the top honours for The Russell Ab-Fab ladies Tournament being closely contested by a 171.4kg fish on Absolute and one of 171.2kg on St Moritz. The closeness of the call on these two clearly shows the wisdom of keeping your catch cool and moist during the time from landing to weigh in!!!

Locals in the Bay are attributing the better season to the schools of saury which are being chased at the surface, bringing the marlin into the surface layer strike zone. The stripeys are also hunting in groups, with pack attacks almost being the norm. In these circumstances some extra action is always possible if a live bait is dropped back, while the lures are being retrieved after a hook up.

The snapper have become a bit elusive of late, with best results coming from ledger rigs fished deep around the foul fringes in 40 to 50M, with an added bonus of trevally, terakihi and golden snapper always likely. Most of the fish are small, barely over 30cm, but the occasional moocher is also there for the taking.

 Finding some relatively easy picking on our hapuka spots has been a relief, with results having been pretty poor over the last year. A quick drop last week resulted in 3 hapuka and a couple of gemmies from just a couple of drops with two lines, so this will hopefully bode well for the coming season.

We have been invaded by a large number of small kingis. These fish are almost entirely under the 75cm limit, though Russell's ex policeman, Colwyn Shortland skippering his aunties on Pukematu managed to find 3 fish of around 15kg while jigging at 71M Reef to take out top kingi prizes during the Ab-Fab Tournament. Bigger fish are likely to improve in numbers once the usual Autumn run starts.

As always drop me an email at major.tom@xtra.co.nz and I will reply as charters allow.