November 2009 - Week 4
Bay of Islands Fishing Report
|
Jan Bell's Snapper was caught in the last ten minutes of the trip. It was a great way to wind up a pretty quiet day. Although it only weighed in at 9lbs, it was a real scrapper and put up a great fight.
Next Trip is 29th November .....
The adventure continues but we're going out a bit earlier to see if we can hook into something worth catching
23rd November - It's been a long time since we've seen weather like this - dead calm, no wind, overcast conditions and warm. We didn't have to drop anchor for over three hours which was useful as the fish weren't biting at all. Everywhere we tried, we passed other boats experiencing the same conditions. It was getting frustrating but at around 12:30 we started to get a few bites. When we drifted a bit further the bite action stopped dead so we went back and dropped anchor. At first nothing happened but gradually the fish came on the bite. We didn't end up catching as much as yesterday but we got enough to ensure everyone got a few fillets. The highlight came in the last 10 minutes of the trip when Jan's line started screaming out. Her fish put up a big battle but eventually it lost the fight. It certainly bought a smile to Jan's face.
24th November - Another great day (weatherwise) but until the wind changes direction it is always going to be hard fishing. Our first few spots produced a lot of hungry fish but very few fish above the 30cm mark. Our last spot, showed promise with about four Snapper around the 2lb mark so I think we'll be back there tomorrow.
25th November - We didn't have high hopes for today as fate had dealt up a southerly wind. The local saying is "wind from the south, fish close their mouth". On the positive side, the winds forecast were a lot lighter than promised previously and we had found hints of some good fish at our last stop yesterday. We had suspicions that we had been pinged by the opposition yesterday when they passed very very close to us as we were weighing anchor. Sure enough we found a Blue Seas boat sitting on that very same spot when we arrived today. I suppose we should feel complimented that they have to use our expertise to find fish for their clients.
Anyway we had the last laugh, we dropped anchor nearby and immediately started to catch some respectable fish. Action on Blue Seas was non-existent. My clients remarked several times that they hadn't noticed anyone pull in a fish on their boat. This seemed to be confirmed when they finally left and tried to find a spot of their own. We continued for a while but the fish went off the bite, so we moved too. Our 2nd and 3rd spots produced fish for a while but eventually the fish went off the bite here too. We had the choice of going to a 4th spot or checking out a large pod of dolphins that were passing. We had enough fish on board so the vote was "dolphins". It was a big pod of at least 50 and we spent about 15 minutes amongst them taking photos. Brilliant, I never get tired of these creatures.
|
This was one of those trips that you enjoy from start to finish. Danny Lim had organised for his family who were out from Singapore to come fishing with us. They were a great bunch of people from 4yr old Amanda who was catching yellowtail on a sabiki rig for our bait, right through to Danny who had a story for every occasion. Danny is a very keen fisherman and wants his family to experience the joys of fishing at every opportunity.
This 5lb Snapper, pulled in by Woei Seah, was our biggest today.
26th November - Another day with stunning weather but unfortunately the winds are still from the SW. We tried all over the bay but the results were mediocre at best. Our first keeper was a large Kahawai (should be way too early for them), our second keeper was a large Blue Cod (they shouldn't even be here in the first place) and then, finally, we started to get some of the target species - Snapper. Nothing spectacular but I suppose that at least we got some. We understand that even the Kingfish are hard to catch at present.
The trip ended with this large pod of dolphins. They move too fast to get a decent photo so I tried to get a movie using my still camera. Not great quality but you get the idea.
27th November - Today produced the worst result we have ever had. The fish were not interested at all, even when we managed to find diving Gannets, huge schools of Pilchards, Jesus Birds...everything except large hungry Snapper. We did find out after the fact that there were some really good hits on reasonable Snapper from about 6am through to 9:30am. Unfortunately our group didn't turn up until 9:30 so we well and truly missed all the action.