Fishing Reports

Hopefully all of you will have had a brilliant holiday break. For those lucky ones, you’ll still be on leave – and fishing! As predicted, there was a huge amount of effort put in over the holidays on virtually all fronts with mixed results.

If you were gamefishing over this time you probably did it tough and have a hefty fuel bill to show for your trouble. Anyone else fishing everywhere else probably did very well. The weather has been near perfect an all but a couple days out of nearly three weeks. Some amazing looking water not far offshore to tantalize all those who venture forth.

Inshore

Very few poor stories coming through from the nearshore arena. One common nuisance has been “mal de mar”! The constant, but light, northerlies have created the proverbial “bowl fuel of jelly” with choppy seas. Even though there’s been few problems, a lot of uneasy stomachs have been emptied of their contents! If you can get past that malady, there’s plenty of good fishing to keep you occupied.

Snapper is the name of the game and doesn’t disappoint often. They are in full spawn now and, as such, scattered throughout a wide spectrum of depths and bottom terrain. Lots of small fish occupy the sub 20 metre depths so larger hooks are necessary to avoid killing/maiming these fish which are the future of the fishery. A few beauts to nearly eight kilos have shown among the numerous “pannies”.

Still plenty of gurnard near pave the sandy bottom to the west of the Whakatane River mouth with Coastlands to the radio mast being the best of it. Terakihi are also in good abundance with the Rurima Rocks through to Matamata being a great place to look with around 35 metres a prime depth. Water is warming and suddenly nearly jellyfish free. Good news for divers even though the colour is decidedly green.

Offshore

White Island has been a real draw card and for all the right reasons. Regardless of what one chooses to chase, chances are you’ve had some to a lot of luck in doing so. Deepwater species have been quite resilient and productive although they really haven’t received much pressure of late. A nice mix of bluenose (mainly small), hapuka (average 8-10kgs) and gemfish have rewarded anglers plying depths between 250-320 metres.

Easy to see what is coming up out of the depths in the inky purple water! Closer to the island, kingis have proven they are a) spawning and b) keen to play the game. What was principally an afternoon bite has expanded to all day now – what a pity! One new trend which has emerged, however, is hot fishing right when you arrive (most any of the recognized spots) but petering out after two or three drifts.

Stay long enough and they’ll usually come back on the bite. Slowly (one bite per drift) at first but then sometimes returning to torrid times. They often finish the way they started! Size is all over the place with an average of 14-17 kilos. As you would imagine rats (fish under 8 kilos) abound but there are just enough larger fish to keep things interesting. Private launch “Braveheart” landed the “Whopper of the Week” with a near 31 kilo beauty. While this is a fine fish there were a host of others two kilos or less back.

Dr Leslie King of Taupo led this charge of numerous fine fish in the high 20’s. Bait, of any description, still supersedes all other offerings – particularly jigs. Stick baits have done the business on occasion with some electrifying surface strikes to witness. About half and half with fat and spent fish now.

The huge influx of warm water seems to have brought about a fast spawning period. Back along the island the terakihi have done their post New Year exodus with only token amounts around except on dusk when things pick up. Trevally, seen everywhere, are also playing coy as to their acceptance to bait.

Waihou Bay

Lots of action there, at least lots of effort from holidaymakers and locals alike. The great weather and sea surface conditions were prevalent here as well with many boat crews taking advantage of this scenario. Table fish (snapper and terakihi) are obliging, feeding the campground and batches nightly. Plenty of fuel expenditure with boats heading out to all points of the compass. More about this later.

Ranfurly Bank

Not a lot of visiting. Craft here of late. The one charterboat did well on kingis but struggled on bottomfish. Water on top of the bank was cool and green but, just to the north, is warm and blue. This area will get considerably more attention soon with more in depth reporting possible then.

Pelagics

After a huge amount of fruitless trolling between Christmas and New Year, we finally have got some results in 2011. While still very sparten compared to Northern ports, we can see improvements on a daily basis. Striped marlin are being seen every day north of Whale Island with junior Todd Shaw besting a fine 125 kilo fish from the family boat – great catch.

Further east some promising catches have appeared as well. Some decent sized mahis have arrived early as well as a handful of bigeye and a solitary yellowfin tuna. None were large (41k max) unlike what the commercial boys are landing (60-100k’s plus) just to north. Veteran angler Miles Harnett landed Te Kahas first striped marlin off the well known family boat “Zircon”.

The 105kg specimen was landed in a mere 50 metres off Omaio and would have been tagged had it not arrived DOA and tail wrapped. Watch for daily revelations with blue marlin just around the corner.

Summary

Plenty to keep people occupied with the game scene getting very interesting. Next weeks (and hopefully successive) report should be even more entertaining involving some great catches. Till then ………………………