Fishing Reports

This spring season is certainly taking its time in getting on track – testing anglers in most every regard along the way. Regardless where you’ve fished or what species you’ve targeted in this part of the Bay, chances are you struggled with conditions and fishing as well.

If that isn’t bad enough try checking the temps, both sea and air. Winter still wants to extend its grip which can be evidenced by a snow capped Mount Hikurangi, stalled vegetation growth, few insects and anglers donning full protective garb. In spite of this negativity there have been a few bright spots and there’s some ardent anglers out there doing it.

Inshore

The one area that’s been showing most promise and consistency. While the near shore scene is far from vibrant, most anglers are coming home with the proverbial “feed” if not a little better. In a real mixture of species, none are really standing out. Snapper are in more of a support role of terakihi, which are being caught in near limits at a number of areas.

The sand has the occasional snapper but good quantities of gurnard as well as some fat, well conditioned kahawai. Little pressure other than the very occasional nice day. Water temps remain cool (high 13’s and 14’s) with some jellyfish and red tide (high numbers of dinoflagelites) being noted.

Offshore

Still pretty tough going on all fronts. Water temps low here as well, only just eclipsing 15 degrees. Water is generally discoloured inside and around White Island but cleans up nicely to the north and norwest of the island. Two albacore (10 kilo models) were just landed just outside the Volkner Rocks marine reserve recently where the colour changes for the better.

Kingis, which should be the main draw card at this time, remain elusive. Not only are they not present in any quality but, surprisingly, quantity as well. The handful of decent fish (20 kilos plus) which were hooked found a variety of ways to effect their escape from the hapless anglers. Average size has been 6-11 kilos with “whopper of the week” falling to Ray Jacobsen at 19 kgs.

Elsewhere a few nice (4-5k’s) trevally are making anglers grunt on light tackle with some reef fish (terakihi, red snapper, pink mao mao) to take home for the table. Deepwater has had little effort and similar results. All in all it’s very quiet on the northern front.

Ranfurly Bank

Having thought that without hardly any visitation over the past three months we might find some very keen fish in a near marine reserve situation – wrong! Water was cold, off colour and uninviting with fishing to match – not the report we wanted to put out there but a reality nevertheless. As suspected, the hapuka have spawned and the few that were caught were very lean.

On the other side of the ledger, the kingis are very fit and full of large mackerel as they lead up to their spawning time. “Whoppers of the week” went to Auckland restaurateurs Johnny De Monchy (23k bass) and Nick Mc Caw (24k kingi). Inshore was devoid of snapper with only a few gurnard and a super abundance (double headers common) of plump kahawai. Things can only improve here in every regard, the sooner the better. Water looks better and is warmer (14 ½ - 15 degrees C) out in deeper (300m plus) water, green and cold up top.

Summary

Trying not to be terribly negative at the moment is a little difficult. Surely things will improve and hopefully soon. Till next week ………………