Fishing Reports

Arriving up here, full of expectation, has been a disappointment thus far.  Sure it’s still early with presumably plenty of this season to go in a game context.  Good news is plenty of pretty, warm water.  Bad news is little bait about and, worse yet, no concentration of fish anywhere!  Still plenty to rejoice about up this way in many other arenas.

Doubtless Bay – North Cape

Some excellent snapper catches on the inshore scene if you want or need to limit out then you should do just that.  Some nice fish among the more numerous pannies with Doubtless Bay shining.  The odd fish eclipses 20 lbs but many over 10 with even beach anglers doing the business. 

Massive kahawai, many over 2 ½ kilos, punctuate this consistent fishery along with a few XOS trevally on the sand.  Further a field there are good numbers of skippies, mako sharks and the odd striped marlin.  A few boats trolling in the 130-150 metre region are scoring those stripeys although most are seeing and catching nothing.

Garden Patch – The Pins

Some very nice water here with a few more billfish seemingly favouring the area.  Mostly stripeys but the occasional blue still lurks about.  Bottom fishing is getting a lot of attention as are broadbill during settled periods of weather – both day and night.  Bluenose is leading the charge on the bottom brigade but some decent puka and bas to compliment them.  Swords, always a long shot, are rewarding only those fortunate few.

The Shelf

From the Surville Cliffs all the way through to the “Compass Rose” is nice warm water and well worth a look.  At this point only the centre mark, the “Hook” is providing any action.  A few stripees have been landed and mainly tagged here with “Reel Passion” releasing a real beaut over 150 kilos after a scrappy fight.  A couple blues also hooked in this area but unfortunately both pulled the hook after an hour of battle.  Also some decent bottom bashing, doesn’t take long to get a good feed with both bass and hapuka to 30kgs providing the bill’o’faire.

Three kings – King and Middlesex Bank

Consistency is certainly lacking here in the way of both gamefish and water quality.  When the currents are favourable and good water swathes over the banks then its game on.  Some great stripey fishing has been had by a couple of boats, otherwise it’s all bad news with cold, green water dominating the situation.  It’s a case of one good day (or afternoon), four or five bad ones – an unacceptable ratio.  Hopefully this situation will improve.  Certainly if (when) the water is favourable, they will come.  Otherwise some brilliant fishing for both kingfish (to 44 kilos) and bottom species with one spectacular bass at 82kgs taken on a jig!  Bait fishing is patchy to difficult with koheru playing coy despite actively feeding on the surface on krill.

Summary

Pretty well stated this in the opener.  If the gamefishing will improve and everything else will remain constant we’ll have a more than satisfactory autumn fishery on our hands up here.  Till next week ……………