By PETER JESSUP
The tournament season is here but the fish are slow to cooperate.
The weird thing is that both of the big-game contests held over Auckland Anniversary Weekend produced species that don't usually turn up until the latter part of the summer/early autumn.
The Whangaroa Big Gamefish Club has recorded three
shortbill spearfish captures already, a fish that was a rarity in New Zealand waters 10 years ago and one normally caught in March-April.
One was taken off Cape Karikari, one at Berghan Point at the southern end of Doubtless Bay and the third near Stephenson's Island, just north of Whangaroa, all in relatively shallow water, closer to shore than is usual. All were tagged and released. Anglers on the charter boat Primetime also tagged a small broadbill.
The Whakatane Sportfishing Club held its four-day Tuna Tournament last week from Wednesday to Saturday. The weather made the fishing hard on the last three days and the returns were ordinary, but for a club record-sized shark and the one and only marlin.
That was a black of 166.6kg to Alan Simm aboard Savana City. Again, blue and black marlin used to be a rare thing at the tail end of the gamefishing season. Dennis Davey of Whakatane caught the big biter, a 248kg bronze whaler, on the boat LA.
The cyclones that have spread in succession across and down the Pacific may be the reason the rarer pelagics are turning up earlier, pundits reckon. The fish remain hard to lure.
At Whangaroa only eight marlin have been recorded so far. And Kaeo runanga worker Shayle Foley has snared two of them from the boat Khan, 94kg and 99.8kg stripies.
The club held its small-boat contest over the long weekend and Mark Helm on the boat Nevada took top prize with a 34.8kg yellowfin tuna. Tina Larkin on Reactor caught a 103kg thresher shark. Best efforts were on light-line - Hagen Issell of Auckland won the kingfish section with a 9.48kg catch on 6kg from the boat Kingfish II and James Robson on Dawnbreaker with a 7.12kg snapper on the same line weight.
Sam Busby of Whakatane won the main prize at that club's tournament but the 15-year-old will have to wait to drive the Holden 4WD he collected with his 64.4kg yellowfin. Only eight were weighed among the 600 anglers.
Tuna-fishing has been hard and patchy so far. Anglers have been trying everything from livebaiting to drifting through schools jagging, but what works one day won't the next. The fish aren't feeding hard and are consequently hard to work up, despite prolific bait schools of pilchard and anchovies in the prime areas.
Best albacore from the contest was a 17.4kg fish to Barry Cawte on the boat Sam Sara and best kingie 19.6kg to Doug Crarer on Matador.
Around Auckland, fishing remains patchy too. The inner Gulf is producing lots of small or post-spawning snapper, but bigger and better-condition ones take a bit more searching out and require change-of-light dawn or dusk.
There are lots of good kingfish in the Gulf, though. Try the south end of Waiheke, Garden Cove and Gannet Rock. Live piper is best bait and they can be had on Sabiki jigs in shallow water near most rock pinnacles.
By PETER JESSUP
The tournament season is here but the fish are slow to cooperate.
The weird thing is that both of the big-game contests held over Auckland Anniversary Weekend produced species that don't usually turn up until the latter part of the summer/early autumn.
The Whangaroa Big Gamefish Club has recorded three
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