Fishing Reports

Merry Christmas All! No doubt lots of you are about to head to the Coromandel for Christmas and New Years. Get excited, cos the fishing is red hot.

KINGFISH
We've just come off a great weekend chasing the kings. While there are loads of fish around the 7kg mark, it would be fair to say there are some solid fish there as well. We fished the Aldies over the weekend for about 50 kingis in 4 hours fishing for just a few anglers, all bar a couple released to fight another day.

The biggest hit the scales at 19kg, and pink was the hot colour. The water has warmed up considerably inshore, a good 3 degrees in the last two weeks, so expect the kingis to be right along the coastline now as well, you don't necesarily need to go miles and chew up lots of gas to get them, just put the time into to stock your livebait tank up and work the slack tides in areas of bait concentrations.

We fished the west coast of the Peninsula last weekend (ie the Firth of Thames around Deadmans Pt) in close to shore and found lots of kingis patrolling that coast as well. If you have a livey out under a balloon have a softbait rigged and ready to throw at any inquisitive kingi that comes in and doesn't take a livey.

Check out some recent kingi photos.

SNAPPER
As Christmas draws closer dusk and dawn become the hot times to fish, you'll find the snapper a little cagey during the day. Softbaits come into their own at this time of year during the day and the lime tiger 5' GULP pattern has been producing the goods on the snapper front. We've been having a lot of luck out on the sand in depths of around 18-22metres near Slipper.

There are loads of kahawai working all around Shoe and Slipper and plenty of snapper lurking around these schools as well. TUNA We caught a few albies last weekend just off the Sugarloafs and the first Mercury Bay yellowfin has been caught off the Hook by the sounds of things, around the 20kg mark.

The water is still a little on the green side out wide but a lot warmer, and their should be some interesting developments on the gamefishing front in the next few weeks

CRAYFISH 
The diving has been great lately. We dived the Mercs for scallops a few weeks ago and they were fat and sweet! Likewise there are plenty of crays around in about 15m of water. Hope you all have a safe time boating over the Christmas period.

All the best,
Carl.

info@epicadventures.co.nz 
www.epicadventures.co.nz 
021 227 4354