Fishing Reports

It’s a hard life being a fisherman. With last week spent fishing in Fiji and next week Waihua Bay it’s all a bit frantic. Do you feel sorry for me? Oh never mind then. What I am alluding to is that I haven’t spent much time on the water out West over the last couple of weeks but I've had plenty of 'on-the-water' updates over the last few days.

So what’s been happening? Well the water which took a hit after the big wet is still only marginally better. Temp. is ok in the 22o region but the colour is still nothing to write home about. Still there is good news, despite all this there are still Marlin being caught. Most are still in the 80m area although there has been a very hot patch up off Muriwai with boats getting 2-3 fish a day. There are fish south of the bar as well.

One good development is the appearance of bait balling up. If you can find these on the surface or on your sounder stick with it. If trolling doesn’t work jig up some baits and get them down to the depth of the bait, use a downrigger or just get some weight attached to your swivel. Use a light rubber band so when you hook up the water pressure breaks the band.

There are still a lot of skippies around and a few albies so the larder is still full. Speaking of tuna one other great development is the appearance of some yellowfin tuna. These seem to be in that same 80m area and range from quite small fish just over 10kg to some over 30kg. Having not seen any YFT for over 5 years this is a welcome surprise. Maybe this explains the lack of YFT in Fiji damn La Nina.

I hope you all have a successful Nationals whereever you fish.

Jeremy Millichamp