Fishing Reports

Overview

Things are finally cooling off water temp wise - If you are a Game fisho, then they have cooled too much, and if you are a snapper fisho , then not yet enough!

Inshore

Snapper fishing is slowly getting better, but warm water temps are still holding things back from getting real good. This will only come when inshore temps get down to about 18 degrees, as this seems to trigger the snapper to start feeding hard on the reefs and edges, to get fat for the impending winter. Every year I watch the water temps go down, but 18 degrees seems to be the main trigger point, regardless of which month that occurs in.

At present Snapper are just everywhere, all depths, and bottom types, but there are a lot of fishos complaining of endless small fish. While this might be a pain in the butt in the short term - i.e the day they are out, most should be happy that there is your future stock coming on. If you are plagued by small snapper , use huge baits, or just move on to another spot.

I had this situation last week with a Japanese angler - we moved  barely 400 metres and straight away were catching fish twice the size on average, with the odd big hog just to test us.

Good catches are being had right in Mercury Bay at present, so don't feel you have to travel too far, especially if the weather is rough. We had our light tackle tournament here a couple of weekends ago, and the best snapper - over 5 kilos on 1 kilo tackle & a new club record, was landed by local identity  and expert fisherman "Humpster", well inside the bay. Others are doing well up the river and in the entrance. March to  May is always the best time historically,  for  fishing close in the bay .

Kingfish are still inshore , but as usual, well fed and very fussy about tackle visibility. They will stay in for a while yet with such warm water temps, but you must get some livebaits if you are serious about targeting them inshore. Poppers and Jigs just don't generally do the business inshore here, unless they are on a hot bite.

Offshore

Barracouta have finally receeded a bit, making for much more pleasant, and less expensive jigging on the reefs out wide. We should enjoys some good bottom fishing out wide from now on, and as always, hapuka are there if you make the effort and target them.

Gamefishing

It looks like the taper off has started out on the gamefish grounds, but as usual, there are always some late temperature tolerant Stripys loitering around on the scene - especially at Richards, Castle and Sugarloaf. They are being seen there, as they dont want to give up their perfect bait full larders 'till it gets a bit colder. Blues and what few Mahi-mahi we had, look like they have had enough and are heading off north.

Tackle News

Finally you can get a top quality and fairly priced Jig rod that is NZ made!! Leon at Offshore Rods in Tauranga has come out with an excellent,  very light (a must), nicely balanced specialist overhead jig rod in the Japanese style, complete with the "double-butt" bottom look-i.e 2 sections of  lower butt with rod blank between. It comes in several models to satisfy all jig weights, and is also available in Spin, to keep the "Egg Beater gang" happy.

We have been field testing one of the first ones of the rack, and it is simply far superior to anything I have tried from the major manufacturers, and second only to my own personal   "Carpenter" from Japan, which is almost 3 time the price!!  It sells for around $500 retail and is just light years better than things like the "Jigging Master" etc, which are predominantly made in Taiwan or worse still - China!  It's available from any decent tackle shop, just ask them to get it in if not in stock - in my view, just brilliant!

Good Fishing

Andy Kerr-Stingray Charters -Whitianga.