BOP Spring Report

What a mixture of weather, temperatures and fortunes we’ve experienced over the past week!  Been a real mixture – virtual rollercoaster ride.  We’ve had temps in the mid 20’s one day and well under double digits that night.  Some strong winds followed by plates of glass.  Finally, and more importantly, the fishing!  Get ready for the proverbial mixed bag report.

Inshore

This juggernaught just rolls on, more or less unabated.  Whether you elect to support the full companies and head over the horizon or stay within sight of the local beach, you’ll probably going to have luck and take home the almighty “feed”.  All kinds of stories are filtering through, all but one that is – hardship! Everyone is enjoying success, just a matter of how much. 

While all of us want to do better, most are satisfied with their results.  The mussel farm is an interesting study with all kinds of fortunes there.  One day its wide open fishing for both snapper and terakihi, the next day total shutoff followed by brilliant terakihi fishing and not a snapper in sight! 

Plenty of rat kingis there for a bit of fun and/or nuisance value as well.  Back inshore it’s a real mixed bag as well but more with species rather than action.  The Rurimas and Matata have produced well with 25-35 metres of water off Opotiki starting to kick out some nice catches of snapper there too.  Fat kahawai abound with good numbers of gurnard on sandy patches off most beaches.

Offshore

Not sure what’s happened out at White Island but whatever it is, its general!  Over the past week fishing for virtually everything just got harder by the day, culminating in near fishless days for visiting anglers!  Starting with deepwater fishing but going onto kingfish and even the normally reliable shallow water reef fish – they’ve all been equally affected. 

Water colour is good, temps around average (16-17 degrees C) for this time of year and even a reasonable amount of bait is about.  So, what’s going on?!?  We’ve seen it before but usually a little later in the season.  Sometimes it can last a fortnight, other times merely days.  One thing is for sure, if you’ve been there lately in any capacity you’ve struggled. 

Maybe diving for packhorse crays is the answer, getting away from fishing in its present form all together!  Hopefully this cycle will pass soon but, in the meantime, it’s all about going outside the square to see what might work since all the “smart” techniques aren’t!

Ranfurly Bank

Herein lies the shining star – at least partially!  While fishing for kingfish has been reasonable to good in deep (130-160m) waters, it’s been non existent in the shallows.  That is until just days, or should I say afternoons ago.  Apparently needing all morning to warm up (over a degree colder than this time last year), the shallows really fired up come late afternoon with surface action over a large area. 

Great to see stickbaits working (28kgs largest) as well as all the other offerings.  Largest on a jig was a whopping 38k’s with a few others at or over 30 – good stuff.  Hopefully this will signal continued good times in the future.  On the bottom scene it’s been another matter.  Plenty of hapuka, some bass and trumpeter – numbers is not the problem; quality is. 

Very few fish over 20 kilos with virtually none over 40 at this point.  Very different from last spring in this regard as well.  So a good feed is very achievable, mind numbing monsters are not!  All in all it’s not vintage Ranfurly but plenty good enough to be pleased with ones effort – and with every chance of improving.

Summary

Some interesting developments you’ll have to agree.  Spring is flexing its muscles in a number of different ways and one has to believe we have yet to see anywhere near its best.  Next weeks report should see more revelations revealed.  Till then………………