Going off!

With this great spell of weather we are having we have been almost every day. I’ll be blunt – we are nailing them! Fish to 6kg are common and the schools we are fishing are huge. For example on recent trips bag limits are achieved quickly (2 hours yesterday) and there are some good fish in it too.

Drifting has been the go for picking up the bigger fish as you are moving through the schools rather than plonking the anchor in and waiting while the small ones demolish the baits till the bigger fish get into it. Pilchards, fresh mackerel, lolago squid, soft baits, jigs, they are all working. We even caught a snapper on a bit of chip packet!

These schools are feeding up large as they move out and it is amazing to see what is coming out of their guts when filleting the catch. Anchovies, flat fish (flounder etc), crabs, worms – on some trips they have come up spewing the worms out of their mouths – shellfish and many other remains that are unrecognizable.

The snapper are not the only ones getting into all the feed out here either. Whales, dolphins, gannets and kahawai are smashing apart the huge schools of anchovies while the snapper lurk beneath the action feeding, often high, in the water column. On the sounder the schools of bait are evident as up to 30metre blobs and towers of red and yellow with predatory fish showing around the fringes. Gannets are the best indictor though so keep your peeled for them.

Closer in around Tiri is proving a struggle for the slow boats and the results are nothing like we are getting further out in the Gulf. A different season in here and one can’t help wonder if the fishery has changed a bit and that the days of the slow old charter boats may be near an end. For this reason we will be reviewing the services we offer for the next season to ensure that we keep the results coming in but for now it’s back out into the deeper water and into the fishing.

Bait, ice, fuel, new Kojak rod – we gone!

Damian”Damo”Clayton

The Charter Connection – Where fishing is catching!