Fishing Reports

Don't be too upset if you spend all of mum's housekeeping money on fuel for the boat, packets of softbaits, ice, berley and drinks for the kids and you head out on one of these beautiful calm and sunny days and catch zip or at least find it pretty tough going.

The snapper in the gulf are still spawning and as long as the water temperature stays as it is now 19 - 20C they will continue spawning which for us anglers typcially means short but often furious bite times and having to exercise a lot more patience than you would pre or post spawning. 

The good news is that the Auckland channels are starting to fish quite a bit better now and your traditional haunts like off the container terminal, Rangi channel, Motuihe, Sergants Channel and the western side of the firth are all now good small boat options.  Channel fish bite hard and once so its pretty easy fishing.

Get in early in the day for your best shot at it or at least while the tide is running.  As in most channel fishing situations it is pretty critical that you get your bait down to the bottom and this can mean using some lead.  Further out in the gulf we are still having quite a bit of joy north east of Tiri but please be aware that the Telecom Cable area runs through this area and should be avoided as it is a non fishing and non anchoring zone.  Look for the gannet workups or schools on the sounder.  The schools are fairly spread out but they are there and it has been a consistent area over the last month.

Further out again south of Anchorite and down towards the top of the firth has been much the same.  And although there is less bird activity than we have seen previously it is still worth a shot.  Diversity had a good day on the squiggles south of Horn rock recently with small fish to 8kg, large John Dory and Kingfish busting open some bait on the surface. The kingfish were all babies at less than 1m long.  Horn rock produced also last weekend when Diversity was on its way home from Great Barrier and Chris (the skipper on this trip) said there was a lot of life in the 40m mark on the eastern side of the rock which resulted in a couple of bins of fish being packed away on ice. 

A couple of large Makos kept on eye of proceedings from a distance but eventually couldn't help themselves and came in to clean out a couple of hooked fish.  The opportunity arose to catch one which the boys did resulting in a tag and release.  We have tagged alot of Makos in the gulf so far this season which is surprising or not because there is a massive lack of bait in the gulf which could be making the sharks more willing to approach boats. Chris counted 15 fins between Horn Rock and Tiri coming home that day. 

Little Barrier has had its moments too and we have most of our luck in the deeper water around the island with a good catch coming from the 65m mark north east of the island and another hit from some low foul in 50m on the western side. No huge fish in it but good variety and certainly good numbers.

We chased some gannets north of the island and found a heap of dolphins feeding on a small ball of anchovies feeding on the surface but for the life of us we couldn't get down past the Kahawai and a large Kahawai live bait came back with slashes all over it resembling  a multiple couda strick. We hung around it for a while possibly even expecting to see a Marlin pop up... it was that warm and blue but in the end we flagged it and went back to snapper fishing on the edge of the foul.

We have a whole heap of different trips coming up and the website is updated every couple of days or so. We  have a few evenings left before day light saving finishes, Great Barrier stayaways, Kingfish trips and our Big Day Out also. Individuals are more than welcome. 

All the best out there and safe boating

Cheers

Damo

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