Fishing Reports

 The waters of the bay are holding plenty of kingies at the moment, though they are not large.

 The recently completed International Yellowtail Tournament saw over 200 fish caught on 6kg and 8kg line, but very few of these were over 15kg, and about half the fish were tagged and released.

Best fishing areas were off Redhead, and around Piercy island , the Cavallis and Danger Rock.

The snapper fishing has been very mixed, which is usual at this time of year, with ther water now cooling to around 16C, but some great results have been had in the shallows on the evening ebb, and also from the rocks around Russell.

Kahawai remain prolific, and some good trevally catches are also being reported.

A few larger snapper  are being caught around the 50M contour, though it is frustrating to deal with the very large population of small snapper that have a piranha like hunger for bait. We have had very few tarakihi as yet, perhaps they are having trouble competing with the small snapper and leatherjackets, but their absence reflects a growing trend of recent years.

The leather jackets are a real nuisance. They will strip the bait from the hooks with almost no indication of a bite. If you do make a succession of drops which result in empty hooks from no bites, leather jackets will be the problem and the only real solution is to move & re-anchor.

Two marlin have been hooked ,(and lost), over the last week. One was hooked on a hapuka trip, and the other by Waimana, while fishing with 6kg for kingies at 71 Meter Reef. There are still plenty of skippies around, but very little effort is being put into blue water fishing, with most boats venturing out wide looking to target hapuka, which have been a bit patchy.

 As always send me an email to MAJOR.TOM@xtra.co.nz  if you have any queries or questions about fishing in the Bay