Fishing Reports

At the time of writing it is absolutely bucketing down with rain and howling 40 knots of north easterly. I sit here anxiously awaiting news of friends who are being rescued off a boat aground at North Cape. The latest in is that they are safe and well after what must have been a horrible night and experience in atrocious conditions.

This easterly trend has been with us for most of the season and has sure helped keep the fish in close. The gamefish season still continues and our trip to the far north was a boomer with a lot of fish seen, hooked and we even brought one home for our families to enjoy...Thanks to Bonfire Bob for a great smoke.

Snapper fishing continues to be pretty good with us still working the middle Gulf on the drift. Finding the fish is pretty easy most days although you may have to exercise a bit of patience and keep an eye on the bite times.

We predicted a bite the other day of 2 pm and sure enough after a slow day with only a few in the boot it went off! It was like clockwork...the birds lifted off the water and went hunting, we followed and sure enough as the sea began to boil and the birds went in, the fishing fired up.

Needless to say we did very well using a combination of soft plastics and baits. The bait fishos were getting the numbers but it was the SPs that scored the bigger fish.

Big kahawai are around in good numbers out here too with little eruptions catching our eye as we cruise out to the grounds.

Working these can be a little frustrating as it is often hard to get a bait down to where the snapper are! The best kahawai work ups are the ones with the birds in attendance.

When the gannets start going in, the snapper rise in the water coloumn and are easier to catch as they compete for the feed with the kahawai. I just love it when you get a blistering run on the drop and braid screams through the guides on the Kojak, the reel screaming in protest as you load up on a good fish.

Getting that bail arm across on the spinning reels when this happens can be the only hold up..hahaha.

We are running regular soft plastic trips now (3-4 a month) so check the website for dates etc. There's even a prize pack here and there to be won so get onboard for those.

We'll do these trips all year round and I'm looking forward to heading out a bit wider as the fish move out and getting into the reef fishing using the rubber baits.

Here's what has been working out there at there moment...basically all the GULP range, the paddle tail Basstrix (I like the brown coby and the chartreuse blue), a blue and white Sluggo in 5 inch.

I guess the Slam baits will show up eventually too and we'll see how they go.

The kingfish have tapered off a bit now but we are still picking up the odd stray here and there in the work ups and amoung all the bait schools. They tend to be a more opportunist catch coming up on baits and SPs when you least expect it. Run a livie just off the bottom during your day, you may pick up a bigger one.

There are john dory taking the livies from time to time too and every  now and then one will pop up after a sluggish fight on a SP. Make sure you use the net to land these fine table fish as often it is only the spines of the bait fish that are hooking the dory and these can pull out with a yank on the trace or leader...not a good look!

The website now has all the updated dates so have a look and get into the SP trips, bait trips and the overnighters that are coming up.

www.charterconnection.co.nz

Cheers

Damo - Charter Connection - Where fishing is catching!©