Fishing Reports

So far this summer has been notable for two particular things, the first being a fantastic run of weather, enabling boats of all sizes to get out amongst it. Second being abnormally cold sea temperatures which sadly have kept a lot of fish thinking it is still November/December! 

 

On top of our typical summer snapper fishing pattern, i.e fish spawning during the day and hard to get on the bite, thus necessitating a dawn or dusk fishing aproach, we have had to contend with low sea temperatures in the prime Snapper spawning/fishing area. Local expert John Ellwood on the charter boat Whai has confirmed the snapper have made a couple of attempts to get spawning underway West of Great Mercury and each time have found the temperatures to be too low for the spawn.

 

Until sea temperatures rise a little its going to make for harder than usual snapper fishing and anglers really need to make an effort to fish at dawn and dusk. The next best option without a doubt is currently soft baiting across the sand in 30-50 meters after motoring around to locate the snapper schools. Terakihi fishing of reasonable quality can still be had in 30-50 meters on the edges of the low foul throughout the islands, as well as out on the hundred metre mark on the small pieces of rubble. 

 

Again typical for this time of year Kingfish jigging is very patchy, with the biggest challenge getting your jigs through the ever persistant Barracouta. The best advice is to keep moving onto different schools of Kingfish until you find a school that are biting agressively. Otherwise it will be an expensive trip to the tackle shop, as we found the other day after two hours of hard work, we had no workable jigs left in the boat! This excess of Barracouta tends to haunt us through till the end of March. Hapuka fishing in calm conditions is currently a better way to go, using cut baits and either drifting or anchoring in 100-140 metres East of Red Merc/Cuvier, or North East of the Aldermans. 

 

Despite the exciting news of 3 early exotics of the Marlin family being tagged or landed, ranging from 180 kilos to 283 kilos, the main stay of our Marlin fishery the Striped Marlin has been conspicuous by its general absence so far. Normally we would expect to have quite a few Stripeys under our belt at the Mercury Bay Game Fishing Club before the appearance of any Blues.

 

Not so this season, with the first Blue being tagged and released in late December (est 180kg) by Mark McDowell on the boat Catalina on the 500 m line due East of Mercury Bay, after a mere 30 minutes of trolling on his first day out for the season. Oh to be so lucky, best he buys a lotto ticket as well! The Top Ten Tuna tournament was held last weekend in Mercury Bay, and again following the downward trend of Yellowfin Tuna catches of the last few years, sadly none were caught at all, with all ten places being taken by Albacore. One seriously has to wonder given, that there has been almost a complete lack of Yellowfin Tuna throughout the Bay of Plenty, whether this fishery is completely finished.

 

Rampant unregulated surface longlining practices of the last decade or so have put an end to what was once a fantastic sport fishery, throughout the Bay. Water temps offshore are ranging between high 19s to mid twenties out from the Bay, and the appearance of more substantial Skipjack Tuna schools is imminent, but has not happened yet. Until such time Marlin will continue to be relitavely hard to come by, as the skipjack and the stripies generally appear together.    

 

Good Fishing

Andy Kerr - Stingray Fishing Charters Whitianga