Fishing Reports

Well the last few mornings it certainly feels like autumn has arrived, a good time to reflect on what an awesome summer season we’ve had! Well, it doesn’t get much better.  The kingfish have been big, fat and hitting hard.  The water the last few weeks has been a toasty 22 degrees, up to 24 in patches, with loads of bait in residence and the marlin there in numbers too. 

MARLIN

These fellas are top of the list if you are looking for the best sportfishing action on offer over the next few weeks.  Partly because our NZ marlin season is so shortlived, but mostly because nothing quite beats a fish which will peel of 300m+ of line on its first run – then some!

The marlin sure have been thick over the last few weeks, a very nice patch of stripies saw boats experiencing an all day bite at the Hook off Red Merc on the first weekend of the Nationals and Whitianga’s Marlin Classic.  A lot of that stripey action moved into the Middle ground straight out from Whitianga and around the northern pins off the Aldermen Islands.  With the latest southerly blow a lot of that good water may well move back up off the Mercs and Cuvier.

The last month has seen a good run of blues in all shapes and sizes most of the Blue Marlin action being wide on the 400-500m line,  most notably two massive fish of 393kg caught aboard the Immigrant and 353kg to Niggly.

The hot lure patterns have been predominantly lumo or Evil.    The Bonze Apache has served us well over the last two weeks with three stripeys and a blue coming on board our new Senator last week off the same lure.   For more on some of that action check out our latest fNet forum report here

Those boats putting the time in with livebaits around the skippy schools have been rewarded with good stripey action too.  A crew Tobes had aboard Sanity got a nice surprise recently when a stripey hammered a mackeral set mid water for a kingfish at the Aldermen Pins, and they ended up with an epic marlin fight on a Stella 20000 and JM400!!  Check that report here

The marlin should stick around for some time yet so get out there before the season winds up!

KINGFISH

Late January and February saw some absolute horse kingfish hitting decks of both Epic and Sanity.   One week in particular we dubbed Big Fish week, huge bait schools showing on the Furuno NavNet and nothing under 20kg’s every fish that hit was an absolute freight train.  Many anglers out to catch their first ever kingfish found themselves in the deep end attached to a horse of a fish showing them no respect at all!  Zayne Short pictured opposite got railed by his first ever kingi, all 30kgs of it, and managed to snap a rod in the process and still land it, but a small price to pay for a fish of a lifetime. As per normal for mid summer, livebaits produced the best action.

As the days have started to get shorter we are seeing a run of fish more in the 12-20kg range, and jigs starting to outfish livebaits as the fish are really feasting up as autumn kicks in.  Hot jigs have been the Blue JM Rocket and Blue River to Sea Spike.

More fish are starting to show up inshore as well (maybe scared off the outer reefs by the bigger pelagic fish) and with good bait schools inshore some good shallow water action is in store over March, April and May.   

SNAPPER

While the snapper thinned out through January, February has seen some awesome snapper action on the deeper reefs, livebaits and softbaits getting hammered by a good run of fish in the 3-7kg range, and the snapper are thickening up inshore underneath the kahawai and bait schools as well.

What are ya waiting for, get out there!

If you want to nab a date on board either Epic Adventures vessel through autumn check our calendar here

All the best

Carl and Tobez

www.epicadventures.co.nz