Fishing Reports

 Game fishing along the Northland Coast remains steady, but unspectacular.  Catches at the Bay of Islands Club are well down on last year, though much of the decrease is because of a very slow start.  Fishing over the last 2 weeks has improved , with practically all of the action inside the 200M contour, with many of the fish being taken on live kahawai and jack mackerel towed deep on a slow drift. 

Skipjack have been hard to find and the marlin seem to be feeding on deeper bait schools, and only occasionally chasing sauree and the occasional skippy on the surface. The result has been plenty of marlin seen, as they travel and rid themselves of parasites close to the surface, plenty of very tentative (inquisitive) strikes, but few  solid hook ups on the lures. Most of the bait schools are down at 30 to 60M, and seem to be primarily large jack mackerel which have featured prominently in the stomach contents of most of the fish that have been cut up for the smoker. Large sqid seem to be the other major food source this year.

Kingfish continue to be the standout of the season. All the regular haunts are holding good stocks of kingies, mostly from 8 to 12kg, though a number of larger fish have been taken at Piercy Island. Rocky Point and Whale Rock might be worth avoiding for a while as bronze whalers have taken up residence and seem reluctant to let the anglers take kingfish from the water!!!

 Some good snapper have been taken close to shore around Lion Rock, and pannies seem to be plentiful at Hansems Reef and around Cape Brett, but the snapper action inside the Bay is mainly limited to catching throwbacks.

 Kahawai have been providing plenty of action throughout, especially for the fly fishermen, with most of the fish in the 2kg to 3kg range.

 As always drop me an email to MAJOR.TOM@xtra.co.nz if you have any queries