February 2009
Bay of Islands Fishing Report
10th February - The fishing over the past few weeks has been so bad that I haven't made the effort to update this report. Very poor catches have been experienced by everyone. Beautiful weather and tons of dolphins but you have more chance of catching a marlin than a decent snapper.
Our Next Trip is....
2nd March - The weather has closed in so this will be
earliest before we get out again...
.
11th February - The fish are back!! Once again we headed out hoping that something had changed. Everyone was warned about the state of the fishing but they still wanted to give it a go anyway. Turned out to be a good move as our last spot produced the goods. Up until then the fish were struggling to even get to 27cm and the day was starting to look like all the others.
We decided to move when the second person started to throw up because of the mild swell.
This last spot was a desperate choice but we had to try. It only took five minutes and we got a huge hit on our strayline. Not only were we hauling in huge sea going Kahawai but we were also into really good sized snapper. Our biggest snapper was 3.3kgs, so we finally have a contender for our latest fishing competition.
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Fishing Competition Update
The Current Leader is Tony Nilsson
Size - 3.3kg
Caught - 11/02/09
The Current Leader is Tony Nilsson
Size - 3.3kg
Caught - 11/02/09
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The Kahawai are here at last and hopefully there will be more snapper like Tony's one (and bigger too)
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14th February - Having found the big fish we couldn't wait to get back out fishing. Unfortunately, Murphy's Law, now we've found the fish it's suddenly gone quiet on the customer front.
We finally managed to get out again today and were hoping the fish were still there. Although we were catching plenty of really good sized "pannies", the bigger snapper weren't hungry. We were certain they were still there as we had a couple of big hits that felt like snapper but they either broke the line or got off the hook.
As well as snapper we also caught a magnificent sand shark (just over 2 metres long) but he broke the line just before we gaffed him. The Kahawai were also hanging around but weren't biting until the last hour of the trip. When they decided to bite, they were very aggressive and provided some good fights. A lot of fun with our biggest weighing in at 7lbs.
18th February - This was such a below average day that put me off writing the report and now I'm fuzzy on what happened on the day. I think that from memory that it was pretty quiet and only thanks to the generosity of some people on board we had were able to share the fish out to those that wanted some.
22nd February - We had some crummy weather over the past few days. Although it brought some much needed rain to the area it impacted the fishing in a major way. After several canceled trips, we finally managed to get out today. We had a Sole Charter with a Danish family that included an island visit. The only thing missing was the sun but apart from that everything went very well indeed. Heading out past Tapeka, we spotted a pod of dolphins so we headed over for a look. The pod was huge and we were quickly surrounded by 50 or more dolphins of all sizes. Luckily we were able to spend time with them and the Langmach family was able to enjoy the sight of numerous young dolphins frolicking alongside their parents. I never get tired of these beautiful mammals and the Langmach's were equally enthralled. Hopefully they managed to get heaps of great photos. The next stop was Roberton Island where the family checked out the lagoons and had a leisurely swim. Our final stop was a bit of fishing - although we only caught one keepable snapper we were hooking up with lots of huge sea going Kahawai. Every fish that could be returned was and we only kept the injured ones. After about an hour and a half of fishing, our time was up but the indications were that everyone had caught enough to satisfy their desires. These Kahawai put up a huge fight and it got pretty tiring for those who had never done it before. If the sun had shined then my feeling is that the day would have been perfect.
23rd February - I had interest from one person to go fishing today so I tried hard to get enough people to reach our four person minimum. Having attained my minimum (just), I let this person know that the trip was on. It was a big disappointment when he never turned up. My word is my bond but it is obvious that some people don't subscribe to the same book of morals that I do.
So we went out with only three people today. The weather was beautiful, so calm and mild that it was a shear pleasure just being on the water. We spotted dolphins and had some swimming alongside for a while, we had Kahawai jumping all around us but do you think we could get something to stay on a hook? It was hard but at the end of the day we managed to get three pannies, a Kahawai and a Blue Cod between three customers. The Rossiter family said that they enjoyed it and I certainly enjoyed their company - it was just a shame that the fish were not hungry.
24th February - This was our last island visit unfortunately. They've been popular but it's been getting too hard to arrange access to the private wharf so we've had to can any future trips.
Today we had a group of guys from England who had come over for a wedding and wanted a bit of fishing before the big event.
It was an afternoon charter and the tides were wrong to head straight for the island so we went fishing first. The day had been looking doubtful all morning and was looking like it was going to deteriorate in the afternoon. However, we were lucky and from the moment the guys stepped aboard the afternoon got better and better. The fishing was pleasant and reasonably constant but unfortunately not full on.
We fished for a couple of hours and then headed to Roberton Island. Luck was still with us and we managed to find a pod of dolphins that swam alongside for about 10 minutes. Once again our luck was with us and we were allowed to stay tied up to the wharf so I got my first chance of visiting the island myself.
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Dolphins, a visit to Roberton Island and fishing combined into one trip. You just cannot beat this job sometimes. It's great when everything comes together.
25th February - This was another Sole Charter and once again everyone was English, although they lived in Belgium and France. It was a small party so it was relaxing. We only needed a few fish so we were able to be fussy as to what we kept. The weather was good to us and the company very pleasant and interesting.
26th February - We had a small group of six from all over the world. We'd been hearing that the other charter boats we still having poor catches so we set off to the same place as we've been going to for the past week. Although the fish numbers haven't been huge, the quality has been pretty good.
The water was full of Kahawai but they were chasing Enunga (large type of whitebait) and were not interested in our bait. However, the Snapper were aggressive and plentiful. We kept the first couple of pannies but it soon became obvious that we could get very fussy indeed.
The fish got better and better as the day progressed and we started to get worried that we were going to end up with too many. Our final tally was 35 really nice snapper, and a couple of Kahawai. We had to come back early as it took an extra half hour to fillet all those fish. Everyone, including the skipper and myself got fish that day. Very very happy.
Wait for all the images to load and then left click on the photos for a description and slideshow
Wait for all the images to load and then left click on the photos for a description and slideshow