Fishing Reports

Two weeks into 2012 and it looks like we are in for a great summer season on the fishing front - albeit when the weather lets us out to play!

There are so many options this time of year and that's the big challenge - so many options, so much coastline and too little time!

The marlin have turned up and with a good number of boats out last week the first few shots of the season came, most around the Aldermen Pins, with the boat Ika Nui getting one to the boat only for the hook to pull and  a few others missing shots the same day. 

A boat out fishing for kingfish at Richards Rock hooked a marlin which they played for four hours only for the trace to snap near the boat. So the fish are there and in close amongst the bait seems to be the place to be.  Tony who had his first three days on the helm of Epic this week literally ran a marlin over on the way home from a great kingi session this week, with the stripey all lit up 1m from the boat as he came off the plane in 114m.

Its not just marlin blowing in with the good water, the blue water has also produced some great bottom fishing. 

We had a crack for a puka off Red Merc last week and a few drifts in Daniel Hobson fishing with us from Australia hooked into a freight train of a fish which took 30kg plus of drag to stop (gotta love the JM PE10 reel!), turning out to be a huge bass of 56kg! 

Just goes to show some of the big fish that are right on our back doorstep at the moment.  More photos of that epic sized fish in our recent Fnet forum report here

The kingi fishing has been superb, and accessible to anyone - with good kingfish within a stones throw from most boat ramps, in amongst the bait schools.  It’s a great time of year to slow troll some baits (yakkas or piper) in close or work the coast casting stickbaits. 

Out wider the jigging has been great just after each blow, we had a crew of very keen jiggers from Japan out on New Years day and they caught and released a great line of kingfish on jigs to 25kg.but with so much boat traffic around over Christmas time livies have been the more consistent weapon as the fish shy off the metal a bit with too many boats around.  

Most of the offshore pins from Cuvier down to Mayor are holding good kingfish, Tobes getting into some good kings to the 20k mark up at Cuvier the other day.

On the snapper front once again you don’t need to go too far from home, the winning snapper of 7kg in the local Tairua snapper comp last week caught within sight of Pauanui beach between Slipper and Shoe.

So, the Eastern Coro is firing on pretty much all fronts.  With the Mercury Bay Top Ten Tuna Tournament on this weekend there should be plenty more to report next week…

Til then happy fishing!

Carl, Toby and Tony

Epic Adventures

http://www.epicadventures.co.nz