Fishing Reports

Continued unsettled weather is providing only narrow windows of opportunity to fish in comfort around the bay and offshore.

As usual when water temps fall below 15C ,the larger snapper have become lethargic while vast schools of piranha-sized fish annihilate the bait supple. To overcome the worst of this problem, try fishing a whole or half fresh jack mackerel on straylines. If fishing ledger rigs, try chunks of fresh maomao or trevally, and if relying on the bait shop try to find extra large squid as the thicker chunks will last longer.

We are also having some good catches of john dory so a small live bait fished close to the bottom may provide a good feed even if most of the snapper need to be returned to the water.
Kingfish activity has slowed a little as winter drags on. Best fishing has been from the Nine Pin up to Rocky Point.

The fishing out wide began winter with some promise, with good catches of hapuka around Main Rock, but fishing has been very hard over the last few weeks with some suspicion that the most prominent marks have received close attention from commercial longliners. Big tarakihi are hanging on the deep water reefs, however and dropping a string of small hooks should provide a feed, even if the "big fellas" remain elusive.

As always, drop me an email to major.tom@xtra.co.nz if you have any queries.