Fishing Reports

The good weather continues and continues and ……..lets hope we get a few more months like the last few.

Snapper fishing has been awesome and that’s it in a nut shell! Huge schools of very hungry snapper are out in the Gulf and when they come on the bite it pretty full on and I mean pretty as in 100 in an hour sort of stuff!

Drifting is the go especially on the “no bait” trips and although a little slower than the bait fishing it is the way to move through the schools, attracting the attention of the larger fish and getting those soft plastics moving. The bait fishing has been outstanding and the quality of fish is really good. The fish are all clean, mostly unmarked or injured e.g.; bung eyes and body wounds and some are really fat.

They are of course feeding up large to put on condition for the cooler months and feeding on anchovies, worms, shell fish, crabs and the remnants of the many work ups out here.

Huge schools of anchovies are being rounded up by mainly kahawai (good to see them back in numbers) whales and dolphins. This sort of action really gets the snapper fired up into a frenzy and as one guy said to me – “this fishing is sick!”

Further out, Little Barrier has been producing some good size snapper along the edges of the foul in around 50m and no doubt there has been a few dragged out of the shallows too. Horn Rock fired up one evening last week with a boat load of good fish coming from the deeper parts of the reef.

We fished the Broken Islands one a recent overnighter and pulled 2 big snapper and a bunch of good table fish from the shallows at dawn and then moved out a bit deeper – 40m – to get right back into them over a small reef. A sign of things to come as the fish move in to winter over or feed up as they move out to deeper water. Speed jigging the kingies has been good too but the size of fish are down a bit with only a few around 12kg caught.

Closer in has been patchy. The boats that fish Tiri are getting a hit and miss result so I would suggest the change of light or get under the massive schools of kahawai along the coast and drift through them using SP's or baits and jigs. There are schools along the East Coast Bays and all around the Whangaparaoa area. Keep an eye out for the live firing exercise off the end of the peninsula at the moment.

DIVERSITY now has 450 litre live bait tank incorporated in the bait and rigging station. With a 5000 l/per hour pump, glass front and plenty of room (even I can fit in it!) it will be perfect for keeping our little friends alive and kicking. Cheers to our fishing team for getting stuck in and helping this wood butcher out!

We have a few dates to fill so here’s what’s in the offing over the next few weeks:

May 30 – Wed: Day trip $100pp

June 6 – Wed: Day trip $100pp

June 13+14:  2 days at Great Barrier $350 includes bait – 5 spots left

June 20 + 21: 2 days at Great Barrier $350 includes bait – 4 spots left

As usual trips are numbers and weather dependent.

Good forecast for the weekend so get out there and into it!

Cheers – Damian”Damo”Clayton

www.charterconnection.co.nz

021 2446346