Fishing Reports

Phew! Its been hot...just like the fishing.

What a great season we are having so far. The Gulf is full of hungry snapper and we have basically been camped out in the middle for the last 2 months. Th snapper fishing is outstanding with large school fish (up to 8-9kg) gracing the decks. These schools are tightly packed  and moving around the Gulf spawning and feeding up large. It is not uncommon to have the fish belching out worms, crabs and anchovies when they come aboard.

It has bee out in the mddle of the Gulf that we have been drift fishing these schools and gannet work ups with great success. Bag limits are being achieved sometimes with a couple of hours! We choose to drift through these schools and work ups as we have noted the difference between drift caught fish and those from off an anchored boat. The drift caught fish are generally bigger.

Closer in is a bit patchy with all the boat traffic and calm weather whereas we see very few boats apart from the odd container ship or car carrier out deeper.

When we are not chasing down the snapper schools and gannet work ups we have been hunting the kingfish in the Gulf. To be frank, it has been alot of fun and we have been getting some great results using the jigs. Jigging is very interactive, visually exciting and very  rewarding. The hits are awesome with jigs being wound flat out to the surface getting smacked over by these hoodlums of the reef.

We still carry live baits when we go kingi fishing and these have been catching them on dropper rigs and also straylined down into the reef...some don't make it that far though!Having such a large cockpit means we can jig 6 anglers at once and the multiple follows and pack attacks at times makes for some fast and furious action. It is not always red hot of course and we have to move around the reefs of the Gulf..."reef hopping and dropping" we call it. Find the structure and the bait fish, set up a drift and speed and vertically jig them up.

Our anglers so far this season have been having a ball. PBs (personal bests) have been set and the we have introduced alot of new anglers to the sport and alot of not so new anglers have been enjoying some of the soft bait tactics we've been showing them. The new Jigstar jig heads with a worm hook attached are great for this deeper water snapper fishing as they get the bait down into the zone and keep it there. We've been using all sorts of brands and styles of SPs (soft plastics) with huge success and now have a few SP sets you can hire for or during the day. 

A few recent trips have turned up some bigger snapper with young and not so young getting amoungst it.

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A few nice sized john dory have been put to good use inside the breadcrumbs along with some big (50cm+) gurnard. A few blue cod have shown up too but on the whole it is snapper city out here at the moment.

We have just loaded a list of dates for casual anglers, jigging trips, Sp trips and overnighters on the website. Check it out at www.charterconnection.co.nz

Enjoy the great season

Damo

Charter Connection - Where fishing is catching!©