Fishing: Bad weather, patchy catches

The large low pressure system that floated down the east coast this week put paid to the gamefishing in the Far North and stalled a couple of contests targeting kingfish.

The southeasterly wind that was generated by the low is generally considered the worst wind to fish in and the patchy nature of catches over the past week confirms that.

Just the same, there have been some big snapper around. One angler who got out off Raglan landed an 11kg fish. One boat fished at the Mokau trench and reported warm, blue water. Up north, skipjack tuna were caught off Berghan Point and Cape Karikari, so perhaps billfish are still out there.

Wind and swell have hit the charter boats from Whakatane north that follow the fish as they move up the coast to the Three Kings. They've been stuck with fishing around the coast and in Parengarenga Harbour as weather allows. Late gamefishing has been curtailed.

Rick Pollock on Pursuit was one of the last up there and reported fish around but reluctant to bite, as was the experience with other boats. Even steaming home to Whakatane he had two half-hearted strikes just off the Poor Knights, in just 16C water. It wasn't much warmer at the Kings either, he said.

The up-side to not being able to spend as much time at the Kings as they'd have liked was good fishing from North Cape to Spirits Bay, he said. Kingfish were plentiful, some big snapper were landed, big trevally and as wind allowed they hit some deeper water reefs and scored good hapuku.

The Doubtless Bay Sportsfishing Club kingfish contest, postponed a week because of bad weather, went off last weekend but only four kingies were landed, the best 16.7kg.

Doug McColl of Coopers Beach Sports said the swell had made fishing hard. Surfcasters were getting snapper off Tokerau Beach in the evening. There had been some good snapper taken around the Karikari islands prior to the swell rising, McColl said.

The Bay of Islands yellowtail contest also went slowly. Ten fish were caught on the first day last Sunday, four on Monday but then Tuesday was called a lay-day because of the high swell.

In the Hauraki Gulf the Noises have been fishing well, says charter operator Eugen de Bruyn on Sea Genie. Snapper in the 2.5-3kg range have been feeding aggressively, with some fish up to 7kg.

There are still some impressive schools around, de Bruyn said. He's also done well in the Motuihe Channel in low light mornings and evenings. The fish are over the seaweed beds and are attracted out by berley, with the smaller ones taking pilchard baits early on. The bigger fish are coming on the bite later and going for fresh yellowtail, strips of kahawai, or big squid baits.

On the Manukau, John Moran reports good gurnard catches in shallow water over mud. Fish up to 1.5kg are going for green lumo lures or dark green/brown flashers with cubes of bonito added. They were not eating pilchards, Moran said, only kahawai were. But he advises trying that and other baits or changing the colour of flashers if the fishing is hard.

"You never know what they'll be going for," he said.

The gurnard are feeding hard and are in good condition, which augurs well for Moran's Gurnard Guru contest run out of the Manurewa RSA, this year on Sunday, July 17.

There are few snapper left in the harbour now, Moran said, and kahawai numbers have dropped too. Fishing in the shallows has been more productive than that in the channels, he said.

Kite fishers have taken some good snapper at the top end of Muriwai Beach, around 3kg average but up to 7kg.

Kite fishing pioneer Paul Barnes has had feedback from a Hawaiian customer who has been using his gear to target gamefish from the cliffs that drop to deep water off the main island.

Barnes said the Hawaiian had sent him a long description of how he had landed a 52kg sailfish and two yellowfin tuna weighing 35 and 70kg as well as a 35kg giant trevally by using live baits towed by a kite.

Barnes said nearly 80 per cent of his business is now overseas and he sends gear to Australia, Japan, the United States, England and small island nations thanks to the internet. Anglers have sent him stories including landing large wreckfish, a reef groper.

The Department of Conservation at Turangi is again helping run fishing instruction days for children, assisted by local fishermen through the National Trout Centre Society. The day-long fly-fishing lessons that include catching a fish in the Turangi trout centre pool are held once a month through the winter.

DoC is expanding its education programme at Turangi, offering school visits that will link land use, water quality and the sustainable use of a renewable resource - the trout. Schools are already using the expanded programme but it kicks in to full gear in 2006, when rangers will give tours. The children will have study material sent to them in advance to enhance the trip.

A classroom is to be built on the trout centre site for fuller study of where trout fit into the competing demands on the environment and the Taupo/Turangi management plan.