Fishing Reports

It's gonna be a late start toSummer this year!!!!

Greetings to all of you keen fisho's out there, who are no doubt as frustrated as I am at the endless rubbish weather NZ has been served up for 6 months now.

If you are a student of the weather maps, then you will see , just like this week , the anticyclones come from the west towards us, off OZ, then either shrivel up, or more commonly, get pushed to the north by more aggressive westerlies underneath NZ, which then move on to us and give us another flogging.!

Last week all that changed for 5-6 days and we got it from the East with a good size swell,  and persistent NE,SE,E winds, which made it sloppy and unpleasant from the other direction. Crikey!!

Overview

Water temps are still ridiculous, both inshore and outside. "Stingray" was out the back of Red Mercury Island the other day, and even at the 140-150 m line we couldn't do better than 14.9-15.0 degrees on the Furuno "no bullshit" temp guage. Shocking stuff for mid November....

Despite this, the kingfish have started coming inshore, with more schools seen around Red Merc and Double Island on the weekend, in amongst the Kahawai.

I personally reckon some species of fish (Kingfish and Yellowfin Tuna in my experience) also use day light length to work out when they should be doing things, even if temps are wrong, or still right.

This has been graphically demonstrated  to me in Whakatane  in the past, fishing on Pursuit with Capt Rick Pollock, with Yellowfin Tuna, where one day the water temp is still perfect, masses of bait, but lateish in the season, Yellowfin to Africa, and the next day, no Yellowfin, and none are caught again for the rest of the season!!-They have just all bailed overnight!!

Inshore

Due to those poor temps snapper fishing is still patchy especially during the day, unless you do as local expert John Ellwood does on the Charter boat  "Whai", get up and fish at 5am-thru to 7am, or last thing in the evening thru to late at night. His results leave everyone else for dead, but not everyone can get the overnite or travel in the dark thing organised, but thats what is needed for consistent results at present.

I would still fish low foul , in 20 -40 metres at present for snapper during the day, or go right in with big tackle and fish super shallow with lots of burley, if you like snags!!

Terakihi are still going good in 30 -40 m out on the rubble / sand edges, but be patient, as it took us 2 hrs to get them on the bite a couple of trips ago. Just look for the low level sign of them on your sounder out on the flats, get up current and get the burley down till its 2-3 metres off the bottom, and wait, with small baits on Black Magic Terakihi terror flashers or similar, no bigger than 3/0 hooks.Forget burleying from the back of the boat, shallow snapper style, it doesn't do it for the Terry's!

Offshore

Good Hapuka still to be had out in 90-140m offshore, as they were in there to spawn, when you can get the weather right, same goes for Kingis, still some out on the offshore foul, but thinning out as a percentage moves inshore , as alluded to earlier.

Lonliners fishing off the Poor Knights Rise well north of us, are reporting only a mere fraction of the Yellowfin Tuna , compared to the same time last year, so more proof of a late start, and low temps, so far.

Still, my experience is that late starting seasons are usually much better for us in Whitianga on the whole, whereas early ones fizzle just when they should be getting real good- give me a late start any year!!

Good Fishing !!

Andy Kerr-Stingray Charters-Whitianga