Fishing Reports

Hi Everyone

Since our last report the fishing has been consistently good.   We've had some mind blowing days including one day where five consecutive drops produced five different species on softbaits - snapper, mahimahi, trevally, kingfish and then an albacore!!

Apart from some very inclement weather hitting Tairua and the eastern Coromandel over the last two weeks, April has been a superb month to be on the water. Thankfully the weather looks to be improving and we'll be back at sea once you're reading this after a two week breather!

KINGIS

April has been a great month (it is usually one of the best) for jigging kingfish.

In the first two weeks we had several fish between the 25kg and 30kg mark which are very solid fish for Tairua and the Aldermen Islands.

It was an interesting month for sure with a few broken rods (not ours thankfully), and our very first person to be dragged over the side by a kingfish, losing Ocean Jigger and Jigging Master rod in the process (ours....).  Thankfully the water was warm and our angler was able to have a good laugh about it and now has a great tale to tell back in the States about how hard our New Zealand fish fight!

The kingis tended to be holding deeper than in previous months, and we were catching them on most of the pins around the Aldies, the southern pins have slowed down a bit and more consistent fishing north of the islands.  We did the odd bit of livebaiting in along the Tairua coastline too and the next two months are great times to be prospecting the coastline as the rats have moved out and the coast holds some very solid fish.

Most of the bigger fish we've been catching have been released to fight another day, so there are still plenty of the lunkers out there for someone else to catch another day.

Jigs - we usually go with a very good selection. Sometimes everything will fire but we've had some days where only one of ten jigs will get hit so it pays to go armed with a good selection of colours, shapes and weights.  The guys from YeeHaa recently sorted me out with a Stella and Smiths spinning combo and I've found this a great spinning rig to fish a range of jigs from 200gm right up to 500m, and still get them working well, whereas the overhead combos are really geared for specific weights of jigs.

SNAPPER

Most of our snapper fishing through April has been over deep foul, but talking to a few freedivers the islands out wide are holding plenty of good snapper in the shallows and the next few months will see some great shallow water fishing as the fish spread out over the shallow reefs.

Most trips have seen plenty of good snapper caught in the 4-8kg range, caught on a mixture of jigs and softbaits.  When the conditions allow a 5/8 jig head and 5' gulp have been sent down with most of the fish holding half way up from the bottom on the leading edge of the structure, and when the wind has been blowing a bit we've been fishing with heavier heads like the Bozos, Jig Star and Cyclops and 7" gulps. Pink shine, watermelon and blue neon pepper have been the best baits hands down.

We're targeting more and more snapper on jigs and hands down the best colours are pink and orange. The JM rocket jig accounted for the snapper pictured opposite.

Some of the structure between the Aldies and Castle have been producing some very good snapper bites, the new moon in particular was a great time for the snapper.

HAPUKU

While the water is still very warm for this time of year, there are still puka to be had in the comparatively shallow water around the Aldies, (as most of our foul is inside the 100m mark).

Slight rises off the mud in 80m+ north and south of the islands have been where we've been picking up some average sized puka round the 10-15kg mark.  

These have been coming 50/50 between bait and jigs.  Pretty much if there are puka there they will hit either so I don't think it matters too much.  Zest Hardy jigs have been pretty consistent though, either the orange/yellow pattern or green/gold pattern.

That's pretty much the low down from the last month or so.  I can't wait to get back amongst it and hopefully as you're reading this we'll have four anglers battling some very big kingis.  

If you're keen to get amongst it over the next couple of months - usually a great time to be on the water - then get in touch with us.

All the best

Carl Muir

Epic Adventures

www.epicadventures.co.nz