Fishing Reports

As the title suggests, you need to get out when the weather allows. The past 2 weekends have been whitewashed due to strong SE and SW gales both producing big seas, unfishable conditions, unless you're tucked in close somewhere, and with the so called "southerly curse" it would be pretty hard work anyway.

Huge seas last weekend  certainly cleaned up the beaches with 100s of metres of sand getting removed from the rodney coastline and on our way up to Little Barrier the other day we ran the gauntlet of logs, trees, flotsam and huge weed mats all the way from Tiri to Little Barrier. The water closer in looked like it had a few metres of fresh on top too.

Recent trips up here have been pretty good with kingfish still around (although not in summertime numbers) and we have had a couple close to 20kg from Horn Rock. I tend to find the bigger ones in closer to the rock than out deeper although the snapper fishing is generally better away from the rock. We had one take a kahawai livebait on 80lb braid and another take a pilchard on a ledger rig on 8kg mono. Good battle that last one.

There are plenty of reef fish around the place up here too. Big blue cod, porae, goldies, trevally, a few small pup puka, a few terahiki and snapper. One trip recently (last week on a "casuals day") we dropped the anchor in 40m on some low rubble and deployed a burley just off the bottom. Within minutes the bite was on and by 12 ish we had filled up with snapper. A lot of fish around the 8-10lb mark and the biggest being 6.7kg.

It was interseting to see what they had been feeding on. Quite a few of the snapper had baby northern red cod in the guts and some had whelks and periwinkles too.

Swapping over to smaller hooks and small strips of squid proved pretty effective on the terahiki once the tide went slack and we snaffled a few of these tasties before heading home in front of the building breeze.

Small puka are still around on some of the deeper reefs but you really need to get out wider to get into the bigger ones. Livebaits, strips and triangle chunks of squid, small reef fish and slabs of skipjack (I need summer to hurry up the freezer is out of skippies) seem to work pretty well on these nice table fish. Some of the bigger soft plastic work well too. The Catch Glow Squid being a good one to start with along with the big Gulp grub tails. Pink  and  New Penny being a good colour here.

Great Barrier also produced quite well drift fishing on a deeper spot I have right on dusk on a day when we had been plauged by the 'coutas and small reef fish like leather jackets, wrasse and parrot fish. It was a short bite but it went pretty good till it got dark then fizzled out. We filled a 200 litre ice box in about 30 minutes!

Closer in there have been quite a few gannets hanging around off Tiri where the kahawai are pushing the whitebait to the surface and making a real meal of it. The kahawai  are all around the 2kg size and with a bit of perserverence you may be lucky enough to get into a tight work up where the dolphins are involved and have a tight concentration of bait balled up. Further out in the Gulf too this is happening but it's not as frequent as back in autumn or the summer.

One magic day we had recently, we pulled up to a ball of pillies being worked by the dolphins and it hid under the boat whilst slowly getting picked off. It lasted for about 45 mins then went down and the dolphins which must have been full, left us to it. It eventually fizzled out and we went and dropped the anchor in close to the rocks and with a good burely trail going in the current proceeced to get into the snapper in the shallows using livebaits, whole squid and pilchards. Have a look at the video footage  I  took while the crew had a blast.....watch

There's plenty coming up with dates on the website now into September and don't forget coming up on August 2nd - The Great Kiwi 'Couta Catch. Win Cash and prizes for catching a "couta. There are prizes for the 5 heaviest 'couta and heaps of lucky angler draws. Prizes include a Bradley Smoker prize, TopCatch prizes, Lion and Fishing.net.nz prizes, Gulp prizes, Rusler nets and gaffs prize, Jigs from Boulder Guiding, Prizes fromThe Drinks Factory, Dinner vouchers, a fishing trip, Kojak Custom Rods voucher, Soft Bait City and numerous other prizes from local businesses and sponsors. Thanks to all of them!

You can see the details here. Tickets on sale now!

The contest is a fun,  family and totally non-profit event held out of the Neptunes Sport fishing Club at Neptunes Cafe on the Gulf Habour Basin and tickets are available now for only $20! To register email deepsea@clear.net.nz or phone Damo on 021 2446346 

Have a look at the website if you want to get out amoungst it  or give us a ring.

Damian(Damo)

Charter Connection - Where fishing is catching!©