Fishing Reports

 

Down south, four huge yellowtail tuna from 40 to 60kg were recently landed. Tends to confirm Geoff Stone’s theory that the same year class as last year will visit us again this year, one year older and one year bigger. Rumour has it that a number of marlin have been hooked, including one off the back of Stevenson’s Island. None have yet been landed. But Chris Brittain’s Tagit struck gold with a short-billed spearfish between the Bay and the Cavallis a few days ago. And I can confirm that at least five mahimahi were landed between the Cavallis and Berghan’s Point when the blue water came in with last weeks north westerly weather. At that time, water temperatures around 20°C at 200m were recorded by Brian Candy of Kura Charters. Brian and friends caught two of the tropical visitors. And it’s extremely early for mahimahi, a fish once only rarely caught in New Zealand waters, but now becoming annual visitors. Amazing what a bit of global warming can do for the fishing. With the weekend southerly change, water temperatures went down a couple of degrees and the blue water was blown out to sea. Amazing how quickly it can change: got up to 18°C in the Bay a week ago, but now back down to 16. I reckon the snapper might have got a bit randy the end of last week. Water was warm and the fish were right up in the top of the water column. Some great schoolies landed by Jonathan Fulton on Friday afternoon were hitting floaters right on the surface. “Looked like big fat gold fish,” he reckons. Nice fish, but not good enough to win the Bay of Islands Swordfish Club’s annual Icebreaker Tournament, their first tournament of the new game season. Jerry Anderson on Blackfin cleaned up in the snapper department with a goldfish of 10.76kg. Brett Larsen and Lena Civil with nice 8kg plus noddies came in second and third respectively. Jeff Kemp on Valiant did the job in the kingfish department with a bonzer fish of 14.292kg on 8kg line. Peter Barry came second with a yellowtail of 10kg. Meanwhile, in the deep, Allen Simpson on Fisher II winched up a solid bass of 25.2kg. Not to be out-done, Johnny Outrigger and his Auckland crew aboard Allure slew seventeen deep-sea monsters during the tournament. Deep-sea mounts off the Cavallis were the locations with fisho Mal Nielson dredging up a puka of 21.4kg for second prize and Bruce Douglas coming third with another of 18.8kg. But to my mind, Kayak fisho Derek Gerrikson, useless fisherman that he is, takes the cake with a snapper just over 7kg. About as good as my own best fish and I had all the advantages of skill, technology, freeboard and horsepower. Shows that luck still plays a big part in fishing. Tight lines!

 

From Steven Radich

Report type: Saltwater

Report date: 30 November 01