Fishing Reports

 

For those of you who remember the story about pavlov's dogs - the non politically correct experiment where Dr. Pavlov would ring a bell just before feeding time for caged dogs... and after a short while all he had to do was ring the bell and the dog became a salivating, anticipating nervous wreck! There was something about electric shocks also - but I digress... This time of year, I'm just like one of Pavlovs dogs. When the Christmas bells that plague every airwave, TV feed, sound byte around you start ringing... I start my automated salivation process...because it's not about Christmas cheer, goodwill and turkey.. it's about early season yellowfin and marlin! It's about knowing that soon the warm water currents will start inching closer and closer to some of the more prominent northern land outcrops - and the temperatures approach and exceed that magical 20 degree mark where anything and everything is possible! Blue's, Blacks, Stripeys, Broadies, Fin, 'Core, Kings, Mahi-Mahi, someone hand me a bib or a bucket! For obsessive, compulsive disorder game fishermen like myself - we are finally in our element. We wait all year for this time - driving our friends and family insane with the pre-conceived notions and fantasies that this season will supass all others and the impending legendary battles with imminent granders far off the east or north cape. Coupled with the endless re-sharpening of hooks already sharpened to death over the winter, probably gives our families good cause for alarm - and relief that we're not disgruntled postal workers. But I digress.... Gamefishermen have very predictable behaviours at this time of year. They're constantly walking into their favourite tackle / bait supply shop in the off-chance that the guys have heard a tid-bit of new information (in the last hour since you were there last) about some new and frenzied big fish activity - somewhere. (Steve and John at W.S. Laurie have almost banned me from multiple visits in a day as they say I "disturb the Normal customer" with some of the questions I ask...sheeesh, what's "normal" anyway? What's wrong with wanting to know about changing the angle of open gape 12/0 game hooks by 1 or 2 degrees for slighly better penetration and holding ability? - I mean REALLY! Apart from bugging every information contact we know - we're also waking up instinctively at 4am to check SST sea temp charts (and do comparisons from the 2 days before) and the isobar analysis forecasts to predict what the swell and winds are doing to our precious game waters. We'll go into work with that crazed look in our eyes... "oooohhh Friday 0400 hours looking Goooood. 5-7kt SSW on a rolling 1.5m NE swell. Small WNW crosschop from the passing front- temps at the 250m pushing 20.5-20.8c ooooohhhhh... I'm feeling some Fin coming on... oooohhhh"... you don't even notice as the receptionist is trying to keep smiling at you, concealing her horror as she frantically and repeatedly pushes the panic button under the desk to get the armed offenders squad in here PRONTO! See, we're a misunderstood species - Gamefishermen. Like smokers, gradually being pushed out to sea as "normal" people decide that our behaviour starts to trouble them to the point where it makes them "uncomfortable". But we know - why we get like that, we know full well what causes the madness. And as I was towing my boat up to the North Cape last weekend for my "first of the season exploratory trip" - it was easy to see again and again why we get addicted. For the first two weeks when the guys were saying "Whakatane's got early 50-70kg fin between Whale and White" I had to watch in dismay as the NE's came steadily in, giving me de'ja'vu from last season. The coastguard even had to close the bar somedays and so I held off the instinct to get down to the bay to exploit the early fin run we get there at this time of year!! Next to Cape Runaway in Feb, the North Cape from Late dec - April probably hold the best chance for a shot at something big. So off to the North Cape I went - to the magical Parengaenga harbour - just a stonethrow from the Parengaenga Canyons, the Cape and some of the countries most fishy game water. The water temps averaged out between 19.8 and 20.4 off-shore, and after a day of pulling lures around the canyon looking for current breaks and baitfish - I knew I was there early in the season and the absence of sharks, baitfish and working gannets seemed to confirm this quite well. So I did my recon, and went back to Waitiki Landing to stay the night. Part of getting addicted to the gamefishing experience isn't just the time on the water. Often it is the time in between. This was empasized to me because it was the first of the season - and is a truly sublime experience. I'll describe it - so you guys can remember what you have to look forward to. You've been stuck in the city / working all winter waiting for Gamefishing season. You've got dangerous levels of carbon monoxide and other noxious nasty city toxins keeping you depressed and blase. Every report you have read off Peter's great Fishing.Net site seems to be about small red "scarpy" type fish called Snapper - or something similar. Suddenly it's Late December - you're hearing the bells, the forecast is showing a gentle 1.5m NE swell with a SW 10kt wind off the cape. You grab your boat and your impatient gear and you purge the stench of the city from your body as you drive north to the type of remote and breathtakingly beautiful country that maybe Peter Jackson should make into a movie. You launch, head out through the heads for the edge of the continental shelf. The air, warm salty and clean. The sun starting to rise falling on face and limbs that badly need the photosynthesis to shake the doom of winter. You spend a day out there, breathing it in, rediscovering the feelings of warmth, deep blue water, dolphins off the bow and if you're lucky the great sound of a screaming ratchet as line is peeling off a reel with at least 8kg's of drag set on it. But for this first day of being reborn to the gamefishing world at the start of a new season - you don't care if you don't catch a thing. The boat gets a good run, you get a nice glow from a little too much sun and cold meat pies from some 24 hour petrol station that you stopped in at on the way. When you get off the water and wash your gear and boat down and put everything away for the night - then you go in search for what I call the "Luxurious firsts..." That first shower after a full day on the sea. That first taste of a big steak meal in a quiet restaurant, after having your palate completely cleansed from the salty air. That first long swig from a decent red wine or a cold beer. That first time your sunburnt, tired and contented body lies down on a soft mattress to sleep after being up for 24+ hours.....ooooooohhh. Now that's what LIFE is about! Gamefishing is just the reason and the vehicle for that kind of fantastic existence. Maybe it's the depth of the physical experience that gamefishing provides. I don't know about you - but being 30nm's off a stunning remote coast in a big sea, alone - hooked up to something just has a certain Hemmingway, Darwinian thing about it. For many like myself, it's deeply personal, but on a general level it's such a tribute to being a New Zealander that we can have such a day afforded to us by who we are and where we live. Are you pushing your panic button yet? Yes - from all indications (and my endless comparisons)it's shaping up to be a good season. If the NE swell is a little kinder to us this year - it promises to be a good long season. Myself and others that publish reports to this site will continue soing so when we have news at hand as you can tell from my sometimes "overly emotive" writing that there are some psycho's out there like me who are pretty passionate about gamefishing, life and this country. And, lucky for those of you who also fish, we have an overwhelming desire to share some of these experiences with you as they unfold - giving your information that you just might find helpful. So fish on, tight lines, get some... any host of expressions to get you out there and doing it... the bells have started ringing and my mouth has started watering. By the way - Sunday, out from Houhora I hooked up a 200kg mako who took an 18kg Kingfish that had just taken a Zukers fruit salad Tuna lure over a 35m reef in the middle of the bay. The King took the lure, minutes later went frantic and then the sea exploded as the mako swallowed the livie King, rocketing 12 foot in the air and splashing down on it's back 20 ft. from the boat. It broke the trace at the base of the wind on leader minutes into the fight - but what an awesome sight for the first trip of the season.... the bells are ringing I tell you, I've got that look in my eye.... so be afraid, be very afraid.

 

From

Report type: Saltwater

Report date: 20 December 01