Fishing Reports

Hi All

This time of year takes a lot of beating.  

The Eastern Coromandel is packed at the moment with fish and they are feeding up large.  You don't have to have a large boat to get into it either, as soon as you are a 100m or so from port you will spot birds, fish and the hardest part will be choosing where to go and what to chase.  

Our livebait catching activites have often been relegated to the wharf in the dark early hours of the morning as once the sun is up, there is that much carnage from the kahawai, snapper and kingfish that the bait is too scary and flighty to be caught.  Here's a bit of a run down on what is on offer at the moment:

MARLIN

While there are not that many captures to report over the last month, they are still there, it is more a factor of no one out targeting them.  Thames fisho Drew Edwards proved this two weeks ago, venturing out in a 4.5m Stabicraft on two glassy days in  row and bagging a marlin both days, the biggest a healthy 140kg specimen.  

Both of Drew's marlin were caught on livebaited skippes (not that Drew would be seen dead trolling a lure!) on nice glassy days, one reasonably close to the 100m line where the bait was caught, the other right on top of the Hook.  

Another boat Black Jack caught a stripey in similar conditions a few days later amongst the bait, birds and dolphins south of Red Merc, again on a livebaited skipjack.

Only this last Easter weekend Tairua spearo Rick Turner was at Stingray rock south of the Aldermens with spearfishermen in the water had to rub his eyes in disbelief as a striped marlin swum right in to the transom of his boat. Looking at the STT chart for Easter weekend (that will teach me to look at it after the fact and leave the marlin gear at home!) it is pretty evident to see why, a nice patch of warm water coming in from the south, pushing 21 degrees in places between the Aldies and the Mayor.

So, they are still there its just a matter of putting some time in.  May last year we had a stripey smashing up saurie next to us while we were catching kingfish.   June last year one of our fishos had a makka livebait destined for a kingfish stolen by a marlin.  There's still some marlin to be caught yet we reckon.....

KINGFISH

The inshore kingfish are starting to show up in better size and we've had a couple of great stickbaiting sessions in close lately out from Tairua.  The exception to the lack of catchable bait mentioned above is when the kingis are in residence and in hunting mode, a big densely packed bait ball generally is a sign of kingfish in numbers and this is when the inshore stickbaiting really fires up for us.

April has seen the jigging produce some really good action, over the first week of April anything in orange was the hot colour and loads of fish in the 15-20kg mark were caught on jigs.  Since then the fish have swtiched a little more to livebaits and we've seen all day bites and sounders just loaded with good schools of kingfish.  These fish are fighting hard and an awesome average size.  Plenty of solid 20kg ++ fish taking  baits.

Out wide most of the structure around the Aldermen Islands is holding good kingfish.  Scott Stonex fishing from his little Surtees centre console reported catching an est 30kg fish quite a way south of the Aldies at Easter on jig and another which just dusted him big time (and Scott can stop most of them....)

The Mercury Pins have fired up big time.  Crackerjack reef in particular (where we released 100kingis in a day on jigs last year) has been firing back up, if you really want to have your arms stretched big time this is the time of year to do it....with a lot of the kingfish moving out of the Gulf this spot holds a good congregations of these fish before they fan out back along the coast. The average size is not huge but there a big numbers of fish and still some big ones amongst them.  

SNAPPER

Softbaiting in around the kahawai schools along the coast, you can't go wrong, the 10-20m mark is loaded with respectable sized snapper.  Great fishing for those in skis' kayaks and small boats close to home. Most of our snapper fishing though has been in the deep while we're targeting kingfish with livebaits and fresh bait producing nice lines of snapper to top off some awesome kingi fishing.

Now, we just need this easterly to blow out of steam and enjoy it!

If you're keen to get amongst the action and maybe learn a trick or two we have plenty of spots coming up over May and June.  Check out of calendar here and let us know if you're keen to get amongst it.

www.epicadventures.co.nz/availability.html

Cheers

Carl and Tobes

www.epicadventures.co.nz