Fishing Reports

The arrival of winter over the weekend signalled the start of some primo Eastern Coromandel snapper fishing in the shallows.  

There seem to be a lot more people 'flicking softies' from boats this year than last, but if you're not yet a convert, this time of year is when they really come into their own so get down to the Coromandel and give it a blast!  

While also they're super effective out deep, you simply can't beat the take of a decent snapper when it takes a softbait cast in front of its nose in the shallows, the screaming first couple of runs as it does all it can to take you to the cleaners!

We finished up all our trips over the weekend drifting a patch of 8m water that held a heap of snapper in the 4-6kg range.  You could see the fish on the sounder holding in the gutters of reef that ran out from the shoreline, and we were drifting past anchored boats not catching a lot on baits, with bent rods and lots of hollers as we caught and released a heap of primo shallow water snapper.

The fella pictured opposite is still swimming out there ready to chomp another softie this weekend!

The hot patterns were Camo, Watermelon, and the good old chooks as well, basically anything with a bit of green and red seemed to be the ticket.

PUKA
There are some nice puka being caught outside the Aldies at the moment, with a few falling victim to drifted whole squid baits over the weekend.  From here on in they'll be moving in even closer, and slack tide is the best time to target them.

MORE KINGI MADNESS!!!

We caught and released a heap of good kings jigging over the last weekend up to 18kg.  The hot jig was the Blue Katch spear jig from the guys at Sportsfishing NZ.  This is a mean jig that seems to outfish any others on the grounds out at the Aldies.

There are also some bigger models cruising the coastline at the moment, so it is worth putting on the winter woolies and braving some of those brisk winter mornings to get the early morning kingi bite first thing.

While we kept a couple of fish over the weekend for a taste of fresh kingi fore everyone to take home, the large majority of the fish, especially the bigger ones, were put back to fight another day. While it is tempting to take the big fish of the day home, in my mind it is the bigger ones that we should be putting back to ensure a healthy fishery of good sized kingis, rather than being weighed at the clubhouse.  Again, the nice king above is still out there for someone to catch again!

We've got a few slots free over the coming weeks so give us a holler if you are keen to get out and amongst the awesome fishing action we have on the Coromandel at the moment!

All the best

Carl Muir

Epic Adventures

http://www.epicadventures.co.nz