22nd December 2008
Bay of Islands Fishing Report
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I really enjoyed this trip. I was told at the start that only five people wanted to fish and the rest were going to watch. However, the fishing was so exciting that I found that I was getting numerous requests to get another rod out. The fish net was working overtime. The enthusiasm and hamming it up for photos on the way home topped off a neat trip.
Our Next Trip was....
26th December - Another lovely day with....
22nd December - We had two trips today. The first trip had the worst result we had ever had in the two years that we've owned the Arline. The weather was good but the fish were not biting. Not one snapper worth keeping was caught, our only terakihi was foul hooked and the lone gurnard was not going to feed many.
The second trip was the exact opposite. Our group only wanted a four hour trip so it was an hour out, an hour back, and two hours to fish. The first hour of fishing was full on, every fish caught was 3kgs minimum (except for the good number of huge gurnard we were catching as well). In other words - every fish was fantastic. Unfortunately the wind strengthened to the extent that we were dragging the anchor in the mud. After we had traveled about a kilometer the fish stopped biting so we hauled anchor and headed back to our start point. This time we had to drop anchor on the reef as the wind was really honking. Conclusion - big fish on the mud, small fish on the reefs. We have to get in the middle of the bay to get the schoolies and the bite time is often brief but frantic when it happens.
