Kingfish and snapper on the menu

The kingfish are back! The charter operators are posting some great photos of recent catches and I weighed a nice kingfish for junior angler Lindi Rowe fishing the Nationals. A great fish at 17.7 kg on 6kg line!

The weather hasn’t been great over the past fortnight and I’ve only managed to venture out for a few short trips with little success. The Bay appears to be full of bait but not a workup to be seen which seems odd looking back at my fishing stats from previous years. I did find what I thought was some great kingfish sign at 20m and dropped a 200g jig. Imagine my surprise when I pulled up a large blue (slimy) mackerel. They were all over the jig and I got about 10 of them in quick succession. Winter bait sorted!

Chatting with the locals, they tell me there are some good fish in shallow and straylining with big baits and plenty of berley is the way to go.

Lindi Rowe with her impressive kingfish!

The Cater Marine Small Boats Tournament hosted by the Bay of Islands Swordfish Club was postponed (again) and finally went ahead last weekend. Although weather conditions were somewhat average a few hardy souls ventured out (not me, I’m a fair-weather fisherman these days!). The Club report follows:

Day one saw a number of boats stay inside the Bay targeting snapper and kingfish. The ladies aboard Bilancia decided to give it a go and Gill Francis hooked up to a marlin and fought what was said to be a nice fish for over 40 minutes. Unfortunately, the fish won this fight. A number of snapper were measured and released on Day 1 but the longest snapper came from Bevan Beauchamp aboard Blind Squirrel with a 80cm fish. Fine Line stayed out late and had some good fishing with Danica Marshall catching a 10.18kg snapper and several M&R snapper that were decent sizes. The crew aboard Wet Ridez were also busy catching some decent snapper on Day 1 for angler Josh Paterson.

Day Two saw better conditions but it was still not great. However, a number of our boats did head out wide for the day. A number of marlin were spotted by our competitors but we couldn’t get a bite out of them. Meanwhile, Bill Collector decided to target snapper on their way in and Dana MacDonald landed a nice 11.09kg Snapper. Toby Paterson aboard Danger Mouse also measured and released a 93.5cm kingfish on Sunday afternoon to take out longest M&R kingfish. Meanwhile Kelvin Hardaker aboard Got to Go managed to weigh a kingfish in to take out heaviest kingfish.

Results follows: 

Heaviest Kingfish – Kelvin Hardaker, Got to Go

Longest Kingfish – Toby Paterson, Danger Mouse

Heaviest Snapper – Dana MacDonald, Bill Collector

Longest Snapper – Bevan Beauchamp, Blind Squirrel

Angler Most points – Josh Paterson, Wet Ridez

Team Most Points – Fine Line

Come into the shop to check out the latest in gear, get your bait, ice and berley, and most importantly, some genuine intel! We are open from 9.00am to 5pm, everyday except Sunday close at 3pm. As always, if you urgently need some supplies after hours just give me a call.

Garry Townley

Screaming Reels
(021) 029 56596

www.screamingreels.co.nz