Fishing Reports

Well there is a tonne of bait in close at the moment.  Lots of the shallow reefs are holding good stocks of slimey mackeral, jack mackeral and kahawai and consequently that is right where the kingfish are too.

We shot out on a window in the weather this morning before the wind blew a gale and within a few minutes the livie tank was full with slimeys and jackas. We had kingis crashing all around the boat before long hammering the school of bait in our berley trail, but not taking the livies at the first spot, and so a slow troll to another spot was in order.  

We didn't get far before a big yellow tail showed up behind out live slimey and then it was all on!  Talk about a dawn chorus!  A big white hole was left in the water and the reel started to howl on a nice Tairua kingi.  These fish fight hard in the shallow water, we're talking 5-8m so there is not a lot of room for error if they want to take you to the cleaners.  Anyway all held together and a nice 40lb kingi came to the boat.

Out further the jigging has been a bit hit and miss and will probably remain like that for the next few months.   We've had a couple of sessions where we hit a hot bite on arrival with fish around 20kg, mainly of green and gold jigs but then it all fizzled out.

Some of the structure inside the Aldermen Islands themselves is worth a prospect with the jigs at the moment. Local spearo Rick Turner shot a 30kg fish last weekend and reported the school he nabbed it from had at least a dozen other fish that size and one monster that looked more like 40kg.

Other than kingfish there is plenty else going on. We've been picking up some tasty puka in 100m, and there are still plenty of snapper hitting the softbaits, lots of these fish we have been picking up mid water around the drop offs at the Aldies.

For those looking to tow a bit of plastic, there are plenty of tasty Albacore around, we've had our first batch of them smoked up by the local butcher already and they taste damn fine.   The first lure caught yellowfin have reportedly been caught out of Red Merc in the 20-40kg range and the next few weeks should see a run of these fish through.

We still have a few spots of Christmas, New Years and beyond so if you are keen for a shot at a good fish then get in touch.

Have a good Christmas everyone and tight lines!

Cheers

Carl

www.epicadventures.co.nz