Fishing Reports

The season slowly wanes with summer giving way painfully to autumn.  A sustained southerly now turns into a blustery sou westerly, neither doing any good for gamefishing or much anything else for that matter.  That said, there’s still been some good catches in many areas prior to and during the soueasterlies.  Not sure what to expect after the souwesterlies?!

Inshore

Beach and rock fishers come into their own with near shore action.  Some nice (up to nearly 4 kilos) snapper and even near limit catches have come off Kohi Point, just east of the entrance to the Whakatane River. 

Kayakers and small boats alike have gotten into the fray and all well within a mile of the shoreline.  Pan sized snapper rule the day with most over legal but well short of “lunker” status.  Look for this action to continue well into next month.  Further afield terakihi are eager to please those in the 25-40 metre mark at the edge of foul.  Not hard getting a feed at the moment.

Offshore

Still pretty decent fishing around White Island in every respect, although the glamour has gone off some species.  Bottomgrabbers such as hapuka, bass, bluenose and gemfish are still playing the game although not so kindly as a fortnight ago.  Bluenose, even though they should be approaching mid spawn and be biting like crazy, are thin on the ground.  Otherwise at least token amounts of the other species topped out by some XOS gemfish and “Gamblers” beaut 50 kilo bass. 

Kingis are biting best at the Volkners and there’s some very nice ones (30k’s plus) among them.  That’s the good news.  The bad (and it is) is that the bronzies are also biting very well, allowing few intact fish to the boat of any size!  Elsewhere the sharks thin out but then so do the kingis.  Trevally, mainly fish in the 4-5 kilo class, are doing their best to take up the slack.  Putting some berley in the water usually brings on some excellent visuals within half an hour. 

Choosing which fish you want to hook is the norm!  Reef fishing is anything but vibrant with nice pinkies trying to make anglers forget about the decided lack of terakihi.  Beautiful blue warm (21 degrees C) but few gamefish in it.

Ranfurly Bank

Pretty consistent here with some very hot kingi fishing in the afternoon and trophy fish in the deep most any time of the day.  Kingis don’t seem overly keen in the mornings with decent but somewhat tedious fishing.  Get the sun in the west and she’s all go with virtually wide open bites.  While the fishing is fast and furious on virtually all enticements and the average size is very pleasing (low 20’s) there seems to be few lunkers around with most sessions concluding with a fish in the mid to high twenties.  Still very productive and exciting pm fishing. 

If it’s big ones you want, head out into the depths.  Bass over 40 and even 50 kilos are everyday, commonplace fish at the moment and you don’t have to be anywhere super special – it’s pretty general.  Tauranga forklift specialist Shane Dufaur landed a 57 kilo slug recently but this was dwarfed by “Enchanters” Doug Wardle with his 65k monster.  Indeed, that makes the third trip in succession by the Whakatane based boat that has seen at least one 60 kilo plus bass, and all from different grounds. 

In addition are a good supporting cast of hapuka and trumpeter of moderate to decent size (10-30 kilos on the former, 5-13k’s on the latter).  While this stage is in good order, it would appear that the game prospects down there are over due to a huge influx of cold (17-18 degrees) green water.  Anywhere east of the Lottin Rise is a complete waste of time at the moment and probably will remain so.

Pelagics

No favours being paid out here with the exception of Waihou Bay and even only occasionally there.  With Ranfurly a dead duck and west of Waikawa Point similar (but with good water) Waihou wins by default!  Louise McIver fishing from the family boat “Ariki Tai” landed her first blue marlin and largest fish ever at 206.5 kilos after a grueling 2 ½ hour battle. 

Kiwi ex pat Indonesian resident Geoff McCarthy tagged a fish of similar proportions to make his long time worthwhile.  A few other, smaller blues plus mahi mahi have also been taken with stripees in the minority.  While they only bite the preferred area, it’s the best of a poor BOP showing.  Should still be some decent fishing here but it would appear we’ve seen the best of it plus the next few days of souwesterlies will not be kind to water quality.

Summary

“PURSUIT” and her crew will be heading up north for the next three months as you read this now.  While we aren’t so interested to arrive up north, we’re more than ready to depart from here and the difficult/frustrating gamefishing we are leaving behind.  Will undoubtedly be some good fishing to be had here over the next couple months and all we can say is good luck to those individuals that read it right and capitalize on any situation on offer.  As per normal we’ll start writing reports from the Far North (Doubtless Bay to The Three Kings) as soon as we get a handle on things there over the next few weeks.  Until then …………….