4th April - Hall of Shame - Two new members: We had good numbers booked today. I had been turning people away all week to keep our numbers to a maximum of twelve people. Unfortunately, today I had two no shown. The booking was made by Donna Wharewaka for a Fred Matthes and friend. We had to leave by 9:50am to pick up people from Russell, we hung in until just before 9am before we were forced to leave. I've received no apology or any other communication from these guys and am forced to believe that these people decided not to come. Too bad they've now excluded themselves from ever coming on the best Snapper boat in the Bay of Islands (modest aren't I?) Apologies to those people I had to turn away because of these guys as you missed a pretty good day.
Anyway, as mentioned before we headed out with the intention of checking out a whole range of spots. There was no sign of the 20 knot winds forecast by our incompetent state weather forecasters - in fact there was no wind at all, so we did a lot of drift fishing. We started in Kahawai Alley and pigged out on all the action these great fish provide. After about an hour of fun, we had kept 4-5 Kahawai but no Snapper so we headed for spots 2, 3, 4 and then 5. John Davis caught one very nice Snapper around 3lbs and then sat down to celebrate with a banana. As everyone knows, bananas are bad luck, so John got a lot of flack from everyone for the next hour. Not a lot else happened at these spots so we went back to spot 3 and in 5.8 metres of water we got hit by a 4.5lb Snapper and then straight after that John caught another large Snapper - this time it weighed 8lbs. Suddenly everyone wanted a banana.
Good fun, great weather and some very good quality Snapper.
Anyway, as mentioned before we headed out with the intention of checking out a whole range of spots. There was no sign of the 20 knot winds forecast by our incompetent state weather forecasters - in fact there was no wind at all, so we did a lot of drift fishing. We started in Kahawai Alley and pigged out on all the action these great fish provide. After about an hour of fun, we had kept 4-5 Kahawai but no Snapper so we headed for spots 2, 3, 4 and then 5. John Davis caught one very nice Snapper around 3lbs and then sat down to celebrate with a banana. As everyone knows, bananas are bad luck, so John got a lot of flack from everyone for the next hour. Not a lot else happened at these spots so we went back to spot 3 and in 5.8 metres of water we got hit by a 4.5lb Snapper and then straight after that John caught another large Snapper - this time it weighed 8lbs. Suddenly everyone wanted a banana.
Good fun, great weather and some very good quality Snapper.
April 2010 - Part 1
Bay of Islands Fishing Report
1st April - We've had Mickey Mouse weather for the past 3 days so we decided that we would wait it out. We could take people to places that are out of the weather but we know that these same places have no decent fish. What separates us from some of our opposition is that we choose to stay at home instead.
Anyway, the forecast for today was good and there was a possibility that the easterly winds had brought fish in, so we took a bunch of very keen anglers out. Our first spot up the creek produced huge amounts of Kahawai. We threw every Kahawai back that wasn't wounded (unfortunately this was going to come back and bite us.) In between Kahawai attacks we managed to catch Snapper but they were so small, with no promise of anything bigger, that we decided to move. We headed out past Tapeka and tried 3i's with no success, then headed into the sheltered waters between Roberton Island and Long Beach. We found all the other charter boats here and it didn't take long before we came to realise that there was nothing there either. So we left them to their pointless quest and headed back up the creek.
As fate would have it, even the Kahawai had stopped biting, we tried four spots here but only got one more Kahawai, a Gurnard, a couple of 30cm Snapper and on the last bait of the day - a 2-3lb Snapper. We stayed another 10 minutes to see if we could get another but they remained small. A bit disappointing but short of a hand grenade, we couldn't do better today unfortunately.
3rd April - The forecasters were guessing that the swell out in the bay was going to be about 2m so it was lucky that we intended fishing up the creek today. We started in Kahawai Alley and it lived up to it's nickname as we were catching one big Kahawai after another. We kept a few to start with, just in case the fishing suddenly died like last trip. I was telling everyone about the great recipes I had for Kahawai so if the Snapper didn't bite, we could ensure that everyone could have a great meal.
Terry intended trying a few spots that he hadn't tried for years, one of which was when he was a young lad (and that was a while ago.) So when Kahawai Alley went quiet, we headed off to an area of shallow water that we'd tried unsuccessfully about two weeks ago. Today, it produced a few Snapper around 32cm but it soon went quiet too. So we headed for new spot number one. Spot-X was already there but they weren't doing much. After about half an hour we got tired of being rocked around by all the Fullers boats that were screaming around the place and setting up huge wakes, so we went to new spot number two. This was one of Terry's childhood haunts and my very first visit. There were a couple of local boats here so it was obviously still performing. Within 10 minutes, it started to prove itself to us too - we had a few Snapper that beat all the Snapper previously caught (plus the biggest was caught by the youngest person on the boat.) Fishing for a big longer produced a large Stingray, a Trevally and a 7lb Snapper. All in all, a very successful trip which left me more than happy.
Terry intended trying a few spots that he hadn't tried for years, one of which was when he was a young lad (and that was a while ago.) So when Kahawai Alley went quiet, we headed off to an area of shallow water that we'd tried unsuccessfully about two weeks ago. Today, it produced a few Snapper around 32cm but it soon went quiet too. So we headed for new spot number one. Spot-X was already there but they weren't doing much. After about half an hour we got tired of being rocked around by all the Fullers boats that were screaming around the place and setting up huge wakes, so we went to new spot number two. This was one of Terry's childhood haunts and my very first visit. There were a couple of local boats here so it was obviously still performing. Within 10 minutes, it started to prove itself to us too - we had a few Snapper that beat all the Snapper previously caught (plus the biggest was caught by the youngest person on the boat.) Fishing for a big longer produced a large Stingray, a Trevally and a 7lb Snapper. All in all, a very successful trip which left me more than happy.
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It took a while but eventually the Kahawai stopped biting and the Snapper had a chance. Zane spent a lot of time with his boys ensuring that they caught fish. He must be a really good teacher because Reuben (7yrs) had the biggest Snapper (2-3lbs) for quite a while and Ethan (10yrs) had one of the biggest Kahawai. Sean Hogan was out with us for the second time this weeks and was rewarded with this magnificent 7lb Snapper. Then he caught a Trevally and then a John Dory. He was so happy, I thought that I'd have to tie a rope to his ankle to stop him floating away.
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.jpg "John Davis with his second best Snapper of the day (640x480)")
.jpg "Benson Wang with his best Snapper today (640x480)")
.jpg "John Davis with his Snapper of the day (640x480)")
.jpg "John Davis strikes an heroic pose with his 8lb Snapper (640x480)")
This was just a normal day with everyone fishing happily. Then John Davis pulled out a banana and everything changed. He got an incredible amount of flack for committing the incredibly dastardly crime of bringing a banana on to a fishing boat. So what did he do? Easy, he caught a bigger Snapper (8lbs). Suddenly everyone wanted a banana too. In the meantime, Benson Wang managed to catch his 4.5lb snapper without a banana.
5th April - Today started out very still, sunny and hot. We continued to check out the shallow water around our new spot from the previous two trips. The Snapper weren't biting very well and the fish that we were pulling in were pretty small, so we decided to check out Kahawai Alley for a bit of excitement. We spent a while here pulling in numerous Kahawai. It was Colleen and Roy's first time fishing, so they learnt how to catch these powerful fish pretty quick. Apart from the Kahawai, we did catch the odd Snapper but they were all small, so we headed off to try elsewhere. Colleen was the winner today with the biggest Snapper. It struck really hard and zoomed all over the place, so we assumed that it was another Kahawai. You can imagine our surprise when up popped a 5.5lb Snapper. We didn't need too many fish today so we were able to be very fussy as to what we kept. Unfortunately Colleens Snapper was the biggest but none of the others were smaller than 32cm.
I never knew that we could catch these in New Zealand but we caught three last year and now this one. This was caught at Puka Foul. If you look closely, you can see it's past two meals.
6th April - Bad weather was coming sometime today but we were hoping it wouldn't arrive during the trip. We started with blue skies and very light winds, so it all looked good.
Thanks to my favourite email application - Hotmail (yeah right) - some of my emails to a large group didn't get to them, so a booking that I had received from them fell through. As a result we only went out with five people. People with Hotmail email addresses need to get a real, works all the time email address. Hotmail Sucks !!
On the bright side, if the weather did pack up, we'd all have tons of room to get out of the rain. We headed out to the Brampton and Puka Foul to see if the big swell had stirred up the fish over the past few days. We were catching a lot of Snapper up to 32cm but there was no evidence of anything better. We did have one unusual catch (see the video) before the weather started to pack up.
When the rain started to arrive, along with a bit of wind, we decided to have another look in the shallows where we've had good fishing over the past few days. Amazingly, when the weather was bright, sunny and calm - we had great fishing. Today - with overcast skies, wind and showers, the fishing was poor.
End result was enough fillets to give everyone 2-3 meals but the quality was well down on what we've been used to for the past few weeks.
Thanks to my favourite email application - Hotmail (yeah right) - some of my emails to a large group didn't get to them, so a booking that I had received from them fell through. As a result we only went out with five people. People with Hotmail email addresses need to get a real, works all the time email address. Hotmail Sucks !!
On the bright side, if the weather did pack up, we'd all have tons of room to get out of the rain. We headed out to the Brampton and Puka Foul to see if the big swell had stirred up the fish over the past few days. We were catching a lot of Snapper up to 32cm but there was no evidence of anything better. We did have one unusual catch (see the video) before the weather started to pack up.
When the rain started to arrive, along with a bit of wind, we decided to have another look in the shallows where we've had good fishing over the past few days. Amazingly, when the weather was bright, sunny and calm - we had great fishing. Today - with overcast skies, wind and showers, the fishing was poor.
End result was enough fillets to give everyone 2-3 meals but the quality was well down on what we've been used to for the past few weeks.
8th April - We held off going out yesterday as the weather was supposed to be incredibly windy (but as usual the forecast was wrong). Wish we could sue the forecasters for lost income, maybe they would then start doing less guessing and actually put some effort into providing a more accurate forecast.
We headed out with a good number of people but although the forecast was for light winds but the winds we were experiencing were stronger than "light". At PF, we had an incoming tide and outgoing winds which put us side on to the metre high swell but we hung in for about an hour until we were absolutely sure that there were no big Snapper around. We then checked out 3i's but, although it was calmer, the fishing wasn't much better so we headed back up the creek. We tried a few of our new spots in very shallow water but it was still a pretty disappointing day overall. Luckily we had Kahawai for everyone (check out my cool recipes) and just enough Snapper to meet requirements. The biggest Snapper weighed in about 3-4lbs but the next closest was only about 32cms.
We headed out with a good number of people but although the forecast was for light winds but the winds we were experiencing were stronger than "light". At PF, we had an incoming tide and outgoing winds which put us side on to the metre high swell but we hung in for about an hour until we were absolutely sure that there were no big Snapper around. We then checked out 3i's but, although it was calmer, the fishing wasn't much better so we headed back up the creek. We tried a few of our new spots in very shallow water but it was still a pretty disappointing day overall. Luckily we had Kahawai for everyone (check out my cool recipes) and just enough Snapper to meet requirements. The biggest Snapper weighed in about 3-4lbs but the next closest was only about 32cms.