January 2010 - Part 2
Bay of Islands Fishing Report
8th January - We started with yet another no-show. I'm getting tired of people making bookings and not turning up. Daniel Wilson emailed several days ago to book for two people and then rang a couple of days later to book again for exactly the same day. Luckily I spotted the double booking and corrected it. This morning I turned two people away as I was full. So I'm doubly annoyed that he didn't turn up. No phone calls, no apologies, nothing - so Daniel Wilson is now on my blacklist.
The fishing suddenly got hard today. The breeze started earlier but for some reason the fish were not very interested. Terry was straylining but every time he tried to tighten up on a fish they dropped the bait. The ledger rigs were picking off the odd fish but the quality was definitely down on previous days. A couple of the guys wanted to try straylining as well, so we changed their rigs but they didn't have any more luck than they were having with ledger rigs. By the end of the day we had enough fish for everyone to enjoy at least one meal which was definitely down on previous days.
9th January - Amazing weather and equally amazing that everyone turned up today. Once again the weather pattern was the same but the start was different. One of our anglers, Brandon Pearson, hooked into a large fish almost immediately. It was an epic struggle for the 8 year old so I had to help him lift the rod as he wound his fish in. We hoped it was going to be a giant snapper but it was a very nice Kingfish instead. The rest of the trip was pretty quiet too until Brandon's twin brother, Leon, caught the biggest Snapper of the day. Once again we got just enough to provide at least a meal for everyone. Hard fishing but beautiful weather.
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Everyone caught good fish today but young Sam Mycock did the best. For some reason the best fish are often caught by the youngest or the least experienced on our boat - Dads don't realise it but they don't have a chance.
7th January - The fishing was the same as yesterday, fantastic to be out there in very calm, still conditions but no fish biting. When the sea breeze arrived the fish came slowly on the bite and steadily increased in size. Good fish numbers and quality for everyone.
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The twins kept up the tradition today. As well as being the youngest people on board, these characters caught the biggest fish of the day.
Well done guys.
10th January - Would you believe it? Four more no-shows today. Hariata Eden is our latest person to book a trip and not turn up. She booked for 4 people and seems to think that our contract is not binding. She is now on my blacklist and I'm passing her name around all the charter businesses so if she wants to go fishing the Bay of Islands won't be the best place to try anymore.
Back to the fishing. It was another hard day, with very few fish above the boat limit of 30cm. We tried every trick we could - ledger rigs, stray lines, drifting and anchoring. We tried on reefs and on the mud. Nothing seemed to work. There was no evidence of any Snapper of any significant size being in the area. We got enough for each person to have one meal each but that was all. Fantastic weather but very hard fishing again.
11th January - The weather looked atrocious but we were confident that it would improve before 9am so we declared our intention to go fishing. Sure enough the rain stopped at 8:30am, unfortunately the wind changed direction and the rain came back. Thank goodness that at around 8:50am the rain stopped and the weather from then on got better and better.
We headed out with everyone who had booked (shock horror) to see if there was any improvement on yesterdays poor result. We were still expecting strong winds and a bit of a swell but were very pleased to see that both the swell and wind was almost non-existent. Our first two stops were on reefs and although we got a few Snapper around 30-34cm there was very little else on offer except lots of bait stripping Mao Mao. So we headed out to our third spot. As we approached it one of our competitors, who had been fishing near there already, weighed anchor and left to try on the reef that we'd just left. So it was with trepidation that we decided to try our spot despite the non-performance for the rival boat. It was just as well because we started to get results almost immediately. We started catching much bigger Snapper than before and we increased the minimum size accordingly. By the end of the trip we had a 9.5lb, a 6lb and a good number of of 3-4lb Snapper. A much better day than expected, both in fish and weather. Can't wait until tomorrow now.
12th January - We thought that the weather today would be better than yesterday but as the day progressed it became obvious that we were wrong. The wind was pretty strong and often gusted over 20 knots which resulted in us being dragged off our spot as we were out on the mud. Everyone else was anchored firmly on the reef but although they were able to stay on their preferred spots we didn't see them catch anything but rubbish fish.
The mud was giving us much better quality fish (up to 7lb) but the numbers were poor. The wind from the SE-S-SW was obviously causing a bit of the "when the wind blows from the South, the fish close their mouth" syndrome. Lighter winds forecast tomorrow, so fingers crossed.
13th January - The fishing two days ago was fantastic, yesterday was poor, so we weren't sure what we were going to get today. When we got out to our spot, there were all the usual boats spread out over the foul ground but we went back to where we knew the fish were. Our first hour produced very little so we moved in closer to where a large group of gannets were diving in and chasing the bait fish. There were a couple of charter boats getting excited and chasing up and down but we didn't see any evidence of anything being caught. As soon as all the 4hr charters started to head home, the fish started to bite. We had a lot of fun and nearly everyone (including the kids) had a chance to pull in a big Snapper. I'll let the photos do the talking.
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It turned out to be a great in the end. Gill McCann caught her best ever Snapper (3.5lbs) and had a great fight with a Porae. Jake Causebrook fished hard all trip, he helped pull in a couple of Terry's fish but wanted his photo taken with a fish that was all his. This 5lb Snapper hit hard and Jake responded well and after a great fight bought it into the boat - well done! Kevin Williams endured a lot of ribbing from his brother as he returned small fish after small fish but this 12lb Snapper made it all worthwhile.
14th January - We had two trips today and they were both quite different: The morning trip started out with the usual calm conditions. The fishing was slow but we persisted with our search mainly on the mud. Every charter boat seems to have this thing with reefs lately, some drift and others sit for hours amongst the Mao Mao and yet we saw no evidence of anything decent being caught. Today followed the same pattern as the preceding ones - when the other charter boats finished their trips and headed back home, the Snapper started to bite. The sizes improved with each fish pulled in and we came home with a good range of Snapper up to 7lbs. The afternoon trip was a Stag Trip and the guys were pretty keen to get some decent fish for a BBQ that night. Murphy's Law, we knew where the fish were but the big ones didn't want to know. We came home with 18 Snapper ranging between 30-34cm, which was okay but disappointing at the same time.