Hi Folks,
Thanks for the feedback re this up-date article, this is the second crack at keeping you informed of the happennings on the fishing front in the eastern bay of plenty.
Again the word which best describes my mood is "frustrated", never nice to start a report this way but that is what best sums it up. Weather again has been the biggest influence on the fishing front and has basically stymied our offshore efforts
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On a brighter note I want to make mention of a new tackle store loaded with in my opinion the best gear in the country at present "Yeehaa tackle" 30 jellicoe street in Pamure is the store I buy all my fishing equipment from, they have the best range of jiggs, and the latest jigging master rods and the right reel combo's to match, anything to do with fishing including the fly and soft-bait options this store has it all. Tony Ye the owner and John Pellew the Manager, are very knowledgeable and good anglers to boot, if you are going into the store tell them how you found them and they will set you up a great deal, these combo's will handle almost anything you can thow at them and can cover all the deep-water options from jigging to bait and indeed live-baiting, check them out or let me know if you would like some advice before buying your next rod and reel.
Offshore White Island and Volkner rocks
Kingfish have again been the star out wide, the few times we have actually ventured to the hallowed grounds, most of the time we encounter kingfish from the 8-18kg range, however in saying that experimenting in grounds much deeper have delivered some very pleasing results with kingfish close to the majic 30kg mark. Jigging has accounted for the bulk of the fish, and now we have a full range of the latest JM (jigging master) rods for hire 2x 400 terminators and 1 250 powerspell. I am offering full tuition on basic knot tying (braid to nylon) and jigging technique which will improve your catch rates and help you fish the water column more confidently. Drifting pilchards worked well the other day for Rod and his crew while the fish were not huge they gave a couple of the crew some grief. Hapuku are a pleasing by-catch to some of the deep grounds we are also jigging for Kings, fish in excess of 20kg are fairly common.
The trevally are schooling in large numbers but don't always make an appearance, it does pay when you are heading to White to bring some lighter gear prefferably around 6-10kg is best. When we do get on to them it's action packed, thrilling and a good test of skill and they make great raw fish or smoked. November heralds the start of the pre Kingfish spawning run with big powerful specimens venturing into some of the shallower traditional grounds just to the west of the Island. Hapuku will be around in numbers and a couple of those in the bin is not to bad. Further ahead Bluenose will start to make the presence felt on some of the banks in the 200-300meter range best months for this delicious table fish would be early to mid December through till April May, anyone who's caught bluenose will agree they are just about as tough as Kingfish and thats saying something !!
We are going to start running what we call offshore extreme trips out to the horseshoe and beyond which is a seamount some 12 miles beyond the Volkner rocks, generally we would be fishing 190-400 meters of water while this is deep stuff there are some absolute monster fish lurking in these grounds which recieve a lot less fishing pressure, trips are a couple fo hundred dollars more expensive than the basic costs to White but for experienced anglers it's a challenge worthy of a shot.
all of our week-end spots through November are now gone but some weekday spots are still available, December still has a few weekends left and January and Feb are almost full with mostly week-day spots only available. If you want to take advantage of the Spring / Summer fishing and are concidering another trip with us drop me a line.
Inshore
Plenty of snapper, almost enough said here. The fishing has been steadily on the improve with excellent catches of snapper. Staylinning the reefs around the Tasman has been the best without doubt. Not huge fish but solid 2-4kg fish with improving condition factor. The grounds down off the Ohope bar in 4-8 meters of water are really starting to fire, light line of 4-6kg is plenty for this location as it is all sand.Good solid snapper are feeding up on paddle crab (soft shell) and snapper biscuits which is a type of urchin, these fish make easy pickings most days either early morning or late afternoon and are great sport on tackle matched for the occassion.
Huge schools of Kahawai feeding on Whitebait are practically everywhere which is great to see.
Straylining has been more productive for us than soft-plastics however I do enjoy plastics fishing and the more we all do the better we will get at it.
I spent a couple of days fishing with a mate in Pataua just north of Whangarei and scored a beautiful fish my biggest to date on the plastic so we must be doing something right.
Thats about it from me hope you and your families are all fit and well and I look forward to the coming adventures and catching up with you at some point.
All the best
Lionel & Hilary
Memorymakers Fishing Charters & Accomodation
186 Ocean Road
Ohope
New Zealand
ph/fax + (64) 7 312 5404
email:
memorymakers@xtra.co.nz
www.memorymakers.co.nz
