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THE LATEST FROM THE BLUE FIN cheers Sid Carter: Hi Rolly
Not sure if you are aware what’s happening at Waihau at the moment but it would be worthy of a news flash to members.
Saturday 8th July
24 boats set out from Waihau Bay and one from Whakatane chasing Southern Bluefin tuna, from first light boats were calling hook-ups and by 9am the radio was electric with fish being hooked up and caught and guys sharing the GPS marks of where the action was, Quadruple hook-ups were not uncommon. By 12pm boats were back at the ramp with fish to be weighed. 1st boat had 1 Bluefin, 5 metre tinny guy on his own, next boat was Because with 3 Bluefin one of which is a pending NZ female record on 37kg, next boat to weigh was Nevergiveup with 4 Bluefin one of which is a pending NZ junior record on 37kg. Not bad for half a days fishing! I don’t know how big the heaviest was but I saw one pull the scales down to 107kg. Both Because and Nevergiveup straightened hooks on fish at the boat one was a 10/0 Gamagatsu. There were 27 weighed at Waihau Bay, 6 at Mt Maunganui and 4 at Whakatane there could have been others I don’t know of. Speaking to some of the skippers they told me that there were a lot of solid red blobs on their sounders and bait balls and when going over a bait ball all the reels would start screaming with fish just smashing the gear, very exciting fishing. One guy cast a stick bait and caught a Bluefin. The tally was 37 southern Bluefin plus a lot tagged and quite a few Albacore spread amongst 25 boats. (there were 7 caught in NZ for the whole of last season) There is no reason why the fish wont still be there. The action was 1000 metre line just east of Cape Runaway less than 10 mile offshore. A bit of local advise when using the ramp here is there is a drop off at the end of the ramp at low tide and also stay close to the green markers when using the channel. I consider this to be an opportunity of a life time to bag a Southern Bluefin Tuna so close to home. Use Ch 65 when you are down here!