Fishing Reports

Inshore

Despite January always being quite hard for snapper during the day, due to their getting ready to spawn, and thus hanging in the mid-water in balls, other than dawn and dusk, some good fish have been taken.

We were fortunate to nail down a 20lber (9.2 kilos)on our last trip , a few days ago. A dark old kelpie snapper who had gone out on the sand for a bit of action...  Congratulations to Peter Moore from Auckland, and Peter -I'm glad the handle snapped on your evil chinese reel , on the previous fish, so I could give you my Shimano baitrunner for the big one.....!!! 

Very little tide movement meant tough fishing for most of the day, and shocking Kingfish "Lockjaw" prevailed  all morning, with the jigs.

We had to wait till the tide moved (barely) , as it was neap tides-always hard for kingi and snapper- and then it fired with all the fish over 2 kilos coming in the last 2hrs.

A few good snapper are scattered around, but the best bet in january is always before 8am, or go out after 6pm, and look for them on the sand north of Kuaotuno, or on sand near a reef edge, and thru the gap between Gt Merc and Opito/Otama in 20 -22 metres.

Despite this some big snapper have come from 70-90 metres, out on the inner Hapuka pins recently, by anglers chasing Puka on big ledger rigs, both off Cuvier and Eklands/Richards Rock area. Who knows why they are there at this time -maybe celibate monk types....

Take lots of burley, to convince them that they should feed rather than spawn!!!

Offshore

There are still a few Yellowfin out there, and  some good sized ones of 50 plus kilos mixed with 20-30 kilo fish as well, but they are pretty thin on the ground.

Striped marlin are starting to arrive, but not yet in good numbers, so we are in the January "transitional phase", where tuna are thinning, but  the marlin numbers are not yet that good.

The Areas to the north of us up around the Bay of Islands etc, are having a plague of 20 kilo yellowfin, so lets hope these fish come our way with these easterlies, rather than heading into the eastern bay of plenty.

A boat here lost a big blue marlin recently, at the boat, and several mahimahi have been caught, all very early by our standards, so this looks promising for Feb / March.

A lot of fish are being caught near "The Hook", in 200 m out from Red Mercury, but i'm sure that's more a result of "EVERYONE" going there, rather than more fish there. There is far more bait down on the Alderman Pins, and once the fish find that, they aren't going to leave.!!, so go wherever the bait and birds tell you to go -use your eyes, not just your ears eavesdropping on the radio...

We all seem to go out super wide these days trolling, with better, safer, and faster boats, but 10 -15 years ago when myself and others did it in whitianga -commercially trolling, we never went past 250 -300 metres and caught lots of marlin and yellowfin in 80-120 metres.

We saw several marlin balling up bait as a team in 80 metres off the castle. We hooked the winning Stripy in a tournament  years ago in dirty green water in 60 metres just south of Hotwater beach, and yet today half the fleet seems to try to get to South America in the day , and be back that night!!!

With the price of fuel now, maybe a little more effort inshore would surprise people- Ask anyone whose been out wide lately- where did they see all the bait and birds-I bet the answer is - much further inside than where they actually fished for the day, if they were honest with themselves.!!!!

Good Fishing

Andy Kerr- Stingray Fishing Charters-Whitianga.