Offshore Adventures January fishing report

Fishing in January always worries me with the amount of boats and fishing pressure which some times can make it a difficult month to fish and some times the fish size and amount of fish can be down.

This year the fishing in January for us was the complete opposite with stunning fishing, good numbers of fish and the average size was well up.

For most of January we were getting all day steady bites except for the last few days in January where the bite did slow off to just a short crazy bite in the afternoons. Jigging for kingfish has been outstanding this month and on many days out the biggest fish have been taken on jigs as opposed to live bait.

The shallow water fishing for kingfish has been great, good water temps and strong currents have been pushing bait hard into the reef edges and slow trolling and topwater fishing has been out standing. Some of our lucky anglers sure have been getting dealt to on the rail this month on big fish.

Our most productive topwater lures have been bright blue and also a pink/orange in the lower light conditions, the Shimano Orca, Fisherman Delta 10 and Zeets in 80gm have all been catching fish.

On the deeper pins we have also been catching john dory and snapper on our live baits, some of the snapper have been schooling 50m off the bottom making for interesting fishing.

We have yet to start our marlin charters (they start up in mid Feb) and to be honest I am chomping to get into it, great catches have been reported up and down the coast and only yesterday a massive 363kg black was taken not that far away from our home port of Mangawhai heads.

We have already seen numerous marlin around the Mokes and its not going to be to far away before we hook one on our slow trolled live baits. While targeting kingfish a few days ago one of our baits got hit and after inspecting the bait it was clearly hit by a billfish with bill rash on the side of the fish and leader.

For the month of February we are fully booked with only a handful of casual spot available for March so please get in quick to make the most of the great summer fishing. Offshore Adventures will be at the Beach and Boat tournament on the 18th and 19th of February so if you are at the tournament and see us please say hi, we always love these tournament as it great to catch up with everyone.

Our new lodge is proving to be a great hit for our anglers allowing them to come up the night before their charter enabling them to relax and hang out and not such an early start on the morning of their charter.

The Lodge sleeps 5 in two rooms with an outside dinning area and BBQ, there is also a large filleting bench if you staying for multiple days and need to process your catch. Can not wait for this current weather to clear and looking forward to a stunning February of fishing, this really is the month where something special happens every year!

Good luck out there!

Tony and Bea.