Fishing Reports

 

The Gulf Harbour Fishing Tournament turned on some great weather and some great fishing for the 400 or so anglers competing this year. The heaviest snapper was a little over 10kg and the heaviest kingfish was around 18kg. This was also beatable but there doesn’t seem to be a lot around yet. It’s probably still a bit early for the green and yellow torpedoes. They will start to appear in better numbers around Tiri and Kawau any time this month and further south around the Noisies and Rakino shortly afterwards. During the tournament The Charter Connection Team fished a number of locations south of Kawau Is, around Tiri and out wide on a few patches of deep rubble and foul. Drift fishing early on Saturday morning produced some of the best fishing of the year for our team. The snapper up to 10lb were prolific and the boys were busted off a number of times on some even bigger fish. On one occasion a swivel was destroyed in the process and a hook bent on another. Needless to say we persevered in the trying conditions, but once the sun got up a bit it was back to the smaller 40cm fish and we opted to live bait for john dory and kingfish in another location. The dories we landed and weighed earned us a 2nd place on the day. A spot prize was also secured. Day 2 dawned without a breath of wind and we went deep for the dory again after securing a bag limit of snapper for the 5 of us in less than an hour. We tried to avoid snapper, but when the area we searched for dory showed no sign on the sounder, we ended up catching some excellent snapper on the bottom rigs we had deployed. Live baits were attacked by sharks on the bottom and even the surface baits got major attention. In an attempt to bring a kingfish or decent kahawai to the weigh station, we towed a few lures on the way home through an area that had earlier that morning been home to a pod of orca. This proved to be a waste of time but it didn’t bother us terribly as we had a great catch of average weight snapper to weigh in and a heap of nice fish to take home. The average weight for snapper at this years event was 2.7kg, up about ½ a kilo from last year. There were a couple of disappointing moments during the event unfortunately. Some nasty person stole our prize winning dory, much to the anglers dismay. Also, at the end of day 2, I discovered one of the winning trevally (about 8lb) discarded in a skip bin. This was pretty disappointing considering the awesome weekend it had been. I’m sure there would have been plenty of people interested in taking home such a fish rather than let it go to waste in a bin. It makes you wonder what these characters get up to at sea if they do this sort of thing on the front doorstep of a contest! Congratulations to Peter Gray and Peter Hunt our prize winners this year. Peter Hunt was a prize winner last year also and will probably be a prize winner next year too! Good work guys. Yesterday’s forecast sounded ominous, but a group from The Golden Years Fishing Club decided to give it a go. Much to our satisfaction the forecast was late and we saw little of the wind we had been promised. Starting on a patch of rubble south of Whangaparaoa and in about 20 metres of water, we caught a few smaller pannies. After a few moves the bin was looking decidedly empty but for a few small snapper and some slimy mackerel, so we opted to head further into the Tiri Passage and get the change of tide. Good move! Just before slack water a number of nice pannies came aboard followed by an 8lb snapper. It all went a bit slow again, so I headed out to another patch of rubble and we got onto a nice school of snapper, the biggest going 16lb. A lot of slimy mackerel and smaller kahawai were present in this spot too. The group were pretty happy with the result. That Lolago squid was doing the damage again and I noticed the anglers using it definitely caught the biggest and most fish. It’s available from the Bait Station in Mairangi Bay or you can buy it on board. We have stopped using pretty much all other bait apart from the NZ pilchards, which are always good. The lolago squid is much more pale than other squid and when defrosted it remains firmer too. In fact there is a standing joke among a few of our casuals about an angler who caught 5 good snapper on a single cube of Lolago squid! That’s pretty cheap fishing. Our Flat Rock Special is the rig we are catching fish on at the moment and anglers are quick to change to it when they see the others on board hooking up more often. It really does make a huge difference from a standard ledger rig or a running rig. The only way you will get to see it is by coming on board. I’m pretty sure our regulars are keeping it to themselves at the moment. We’ve tried various rigs over the years and after refining the dimensions of this rig we think we have found one that will work well in most of the fishing situations encountered. It works well in the weed and foul and works well out on the sand and mud. It doesn’t matter how much current there is as it works in most situations. As I mentioned in our last report, the VMC hooks are still the best we have seen for a while and after thrashing a few of them over the weekend, they were still in good condition with sharp points. Well worth the look next time you’re at the tackle shop. The casuals list is growing quickly and it’s hard to put every casual we have on trips on a regular basis. We are going to set aside certain “casuals days” to try and get you all out while the fishing is hot. We will keep you posted as we sort that out in the near future. Weekends are filling fast but there are still days available for group bookings in November and December. Work groups, social clubs and stag do’s are very popular at the moment and it is a great time of year to get out as the weather settles down and the temperature rises. Email us or give us a call to become a casual or to find out more. As I mentioned last report we have changed our ISP and have a new email address. deepsea@clear.net.nz Call us on (09)4260604 or (025)2446346 and fish on! Damian Clayton THE CHARTER CONNECTION LTD

 

From A Charter Connection...

Report type: Saltwater

Report date: 14 November 01