Fishing Reports

Its been a great spell of weather although I'm sure the loclas on tank water could do with some rain! I cant remember the last we had to postpone a trip due to bad weather and Im sure will be wanting a holiday from us too but they aren't going to get for a while as the long range forecast looks good other than a brief front swinging through next monday with a norherly change.

Blissfully steaming along the the other day out by Anchorite Rock and I see the surface a few miles ahead turn white with splashes and within minutes and as we got closer the gannets turned up. not just 1 or 2 but HUNDREDS! if not thousands and it was all on. Whales ( 2 we saw) God knows how many dolphins, kingfish and snapper all feasted on the large school of pillies that had been rounded up by the predators. The snapper were hitting baits seemingly only a few metres below the boat and pretty much anything that got deepr caught a kingfish or got sharked. It was furious action and went on for about 25 mins where at one stage I lost sight of Great Barrier beacuse I couldnt see through the work up of diving birds! We caught plenty from it as the school of pillies got eaten and as it slowed down the birds stopped diving the whales dissappeared and the dolphins just lazily (probably full) cruised around, some coming right up to us on the drift so close you could have touched them. With a decent freight we moved on and found a few more snapper feeding down tide about 400m along with a few more sharks.

Diversity was at Great Barrier again last weekend and although the puka fishing was slow they boys got amoungst the snapper on some of the reefs and put up with some pretty breezy conditions and a lumpy sea off the Needles. We start spending a bit more time out this way now, although not restricted to the Barrieras we fish the coast, Mokes, Cuvier etc too on overnight trips. Most of the trips are for groups (and individuals...check the website for dates for individuals) and can be stay-abaord or in some cases at stay ashore at Great Barrier. Cool places too fish with plenty of options and variety make them good locations when the inshore fishing this side of the Gulf slows down. The only complaint we get is that you sometimes get a burnt thumb as the spool speeds up when your livebait gets eaten!

There is still good fishing back on this side of the Gulf though and we are out most days mostly fishing the middle Gulf area as its just so consistent and although you may have to hunt them down some days and put up with fussy eating or small bite times it remains the most reliable option for A. getting a feed and B. finding the work ups like the one I mentioned earlier where the fish are big and aggro. It doesnt take long to get out there or as one guy put it...1 coffee, tie 3 rigs and your there!

The Auckland scene has been pretty good too from most reports with the usual haunts producing a feed of snapper and there have beena few kingies done around the channles and over at Coro around the Happy Jacks and the Cow and Calf area. The mussel farms can be worth a shot when they are harvesting too but we seldom fish in there.

Colville and Little Barrier are worth a shot too if you know what you are doing and we pulled some good kingies and snapper from the pin NE of Little Barrier and our last trip kingie fishing nabbed 8-9 fish for the crew from other locations out these ways. A few porae and terahiki pop up from time to time too and we fished a rock a while back out here and thats all it produced was terahiki. 40 of them in about as many minutes. A tasty change.

Get amoungst it!

Damian(Damo)Clayton

The Charter Connection - Where fishing is catching!