March 2010 - Part 2
Bay of Islands Fishing Report
13th March - We were picking a group up from Urupukapuka Island today and luckily we'd had several reports of good Snapper being caught around the island so we decided to concentrate our fishing around that area. The very first good sized Snapper we saw was under the wharf at Otehei Bay where we picked the guys up. The restaurant has a burley bucket hanging from the wharf and it was attracting lots of Porae, Trevally and a couple of beauty Snapper. It was tempting but we thought that we'd better leave them alone.
The weather was such that we were able to spend quite a bit of time drifting, so we checked out under the cliffs at Urupukapuka. We caught the occasional Snapper but were being hammered by Mao Mao so we checked out our second option. We know that this place won't be recognised by the Skipper of the "Floating Brick" because 12 months ago he had to ask Skipper Terry where it was. Sure enough, he wasn't there (obviously has to follow us to find the spots). Unfortunately the fish weren't biting, the strong SE winds were affecting the fish, so after about 15 mins we headed back to Urupukapuka to check out a likely looking spot in more detail.
We dropped anchor and waited it out. Frequent visits by huge schools of Mao Mao eliminated any burley trail we were setting up but the occasional hit from a "reasonable" Snapper and the odd Trevally justified us staying. Eventually a school of Blue Mao Mao turned up so we swapped rigs to catch a few of them before heading home. This is the first time we've caught Blue Mao Mao and boy do they fight! They go from very sedate fish nibbling on the bait, get hooked and then scream around all over the place. If they were bigger they'd be absolutely brilliant to catch.
The catch at the end of the day was okay but disappointing for us as we had high hopes. One thing that we noted was that the water is incredibly clear and blue. The Marlin might like it but the Snapper definitely don't.
Highlight of the day was the Dolphins cavorting nearby. They had some babies with them and once they started playing around all the adults got in the action. Fantastic show.
14th March - We only had 3 people today but I was feeling like a fish myself and we were heading for Kahawai Alley today so I didn't mind. It's been a long time since I've managed to dangle a line over the side so it was a bit like a holiday.
Our first spot was not performing at all. There were Kahawai all over the place but they were not interested at all. A couple of boats were chasing the Kahawai birds around the place, they had Kahawai splashing all around their boats and they caught ..... nothing .... which was the same as us, so we moved to Plan B.
This new spot showed a lot of fish on the fish finder but the bites were slow but at least the Snapper were getting a chance to bite. Kahawai were everywhere but only biting occasionally so we had fantastic fights from really big Kahawai interspersed with Snapper (and three of those were pretty good).
The biggest disappointment of the day was that every time I went to take a photo, the line broke or another fish took me away from the action I wanted to photograph.
The highlights of the day were the Kahawai. Nearly every one we caught, leapt out of the water and put up huge fights. I have to get a video camera. Great fun !!
Stop Press - Would you believe it? I've been accused by one of my opposition of making up these reports. Apparently there is no way that we're catching these fish. Apparently we're recycling photos from the summer.
This comes from the guy who does a fishing report on the radio and claims to be catching 20lb Snapper (roflmao) His boats keep turning up where we are fishing (over and over) but they still cannot catch the fish that we are catching. Soooooo ........ we must be lying. Logical really. We're liars and you should book with the opposition.
Footnote to the Skipper of the Floating Brick. Hey Andrew have you found Redhead yet? Once you get another 44yrs of experience under your belt you'll be able to criticize Skipper Terry. In the meantime Blue Seas is the perfect place for you.
15th March - I've limited the amount of people I'm taking out because of all the Kahawai around (unlike my favourite opposition who took 13 people - including a wheelchair - on a boat that I think is licensed for 10 - so much for Qualmark.) But I digress.
We headed out and got everyone prepared for the fight that these Kahawai give and, today, nobody was disappointed. There fish are huge (7-8lb) and the fight they put up is brilliant - they just never give up. Unfortunately when the Kahawai are on the bite the Snapper never have a chance of getting to the bait. Luckily, every now and then the Kahawai took a break and we started to catch reasonable Snapper. Best Snapper of the day was around 6lb and we had a few more around 2lb but the predominate species caught was Kahawai - plus a John Dory which was a huge surprise.
This was also one of those days that stand out. There was a lot of teasing and ribbing going on. Sonia our Aussie set herself up as a prime target and she handed out as much as she took. Our favourite quote from her was "Oh look, I've caught a Kahawai. I didn't know it was there". What made this extremely funny was that everyone else was battling huge Kahawai and struggling to pull them in and Sonia hadn't noticed the same fish on her line. We gave her heaps
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It was a day of fun that I definitely enjoyed immensely. Nobody was safe - if you cocked up, made a rash statement, or dropped a fish then you were going to get heaps from everyone else. We caught a massive amount of Kahawai interspersed with the odd Snapper (our biggest was approx 6lb) and we even got a John Dory.
Side Note: - We didn't have a newspaper to put beside each fish to prove we got it today but we hope Andrew from Blue Seas didn't get too wet when we threw the carcass of our 6lb Snapper overboard at the wharf.