Fishing Reports

Gamefishing

The first Yellowfin of the season was caught on Tuesday this week on the boat Aquila. Surprisingly it only went 20 kilos, which suggests from past experience that the bigger fish may have already gone past, during the week of horrible NE winds we had, last week.

I can't remember a first fish of this size before, lets hope the bigger fish are still loitering around here as we have plenty of bait schools. 

It was caught out around the "Hook", and they lost another later in the day, and got another fish later this week of 22kg. So congrats to Wayne and his team.

For those who dont know, the Hook is the 200m contour line where it kinks out side Red Mercury island-easy to spot on any chart or GPS.Good bait and birds reported by Wayne from 160m thru to 460m.

Look for the gannets from afar, then the brown muttonbirds when you get closer-The muttonbirds actually flap above the Yellowfin when the come to the surface to feed, getting the scraps, so are more accurate as an indicator of the tuna's exact position, whereas gannets dont need that much help, needing only to locate the general bait patch, then dive it.

Inshore

Hard going!!! Snapper are all over the sand balling up during the day, but wont feed- so you need to et out there dawn and dusk when they may pick at a little bit of food.

I had the Guys from BOZOS softbaits /Sportfishing NZ  out this week for a few days, and  while we caught some Snapper and Kingfish, things were generally hard during the day, despite drifting thru or anchoring on a lot of fish. 

Just to confirm the "evening thing" a subsequent trip later in the week for them , in the evening, saw them really nail it  with  the best snapper over 8 kilos, and all on their new "Pure Blonde" colour.-Nothing else got touched, so look out for this colour at a tackle shop, or their website.

We used the prototype to this in the "Kingi Kruncher" size earlier in the year and it was "HOT AS" on kingis, with us getting 43 Kingfish for the day (keeping only 3 and releasing the rest) 

Drifting out in the sand is still the best shot at the moment, in 20 -40 metres, or coming onto the sand /reef edge in the evening, and shallower ,is the other option for snapper, and it will stay this way till probably February..

Merry Xmas and Good fishing

Andy Kerr-Stingray Fishing Charters-Whitianga