Fishing Reports

Friday 19th December

Location & Conditions
Perfect conditions. Left Gulf Harbour at 6am and went across to Pine Harbour for a 14 person pick up.

Baits, Methods & Results
We then proceeded up to Kawau. The fishing was slow and hard - we're finding pilchards are working better for us at the moment. Our biggest snapper landed was 8.15lbs plus several at 6lbs and a few smaller ones.Time was a factor .We started hooking into them at 2.30 – 3.00pm but we had a 2.5 hour cruise back to Pine Harbour.

Notes
Watch out going into Pine Harbour at dead low tide as not much room for error, no water in there. The bottom of the boat is clean! They need more poles to mark the channel as the gap between the poles is too large.

Saturday 20th December

Location & Conditions
Atrocious conditions – 30 knot winds, wild seas, so fished just outside of Motoroa Island out of the wind rain and swell.

Baits, Methods & Results
We caught more fish than we did on Friday. No big snapper though. One Mako shark, 52 kilos, nice fight. Was dead on landing. The jaws will be used as a memento of the day. There were a lot of sharks around. Our blue / silver size 7 & 8 flasher rigs are doing the damage; the plastics are not working as well on the spawning fish. We are catching big female snapper, not many males coming up.

Notes
It is the 20th of December, all fish including gurnard still have roe in them .They have not dropped yet which is very late. Stayed out until 7pm to get our limit

Sunday 21st December 2008

Location & Conditions
Conditions were perfect today for fishing. We burleyed up a lot and this is the secret.  Immediately the snapper were on the bite, ferocious appertite. Kahawai around plus good snapper in the 8-10lb range. Lots of break offs. The gear was getting dealt to. We had our limit by 3pm, and everyone went home with a fantastic feed. A nice way to finish the season.

Notes
Thank you to all the guests we have welcomed aboard this last 8 weeks. We have enjoyed all our trips and you've been a great bunch of people to get to know. We still have  gaps in January & February and will be going to the Little & Great Barrier area now fuel costs have made that affordable.