November 2010 - Part One
Bay of Islands Fishing Report
3rd November - This trip ticked all the boxes - great fish, great weather and dolphins everywhere. Our first stop only produced a John Dory and a 2lb Snapper so within half an hour we'd moved to the 2nd spot. Although there were two other charter boats nearby and there was good fish sign, not a lot was happening so after a brief try we moved onto spot three.
This spot was perfect if there was any Hapuka in the area as it was almost low tide which has proven to be a great time to target these fish in the past. We dropped anchor and waited. We rejected every Snapper under 32cm as it soon became obvious that the average size of these fish had grown since our last trip.
Over time the size of the Snapper increased even more and we adjusted our minimum to fish around 45cm (2-3lbs). Best fish of the day went to Cordula Marcus. Her 6kg Snapper was a great introduction to sea fishing. Cordula didn't take long to get the rod actions spot on and was well rewarded for her efforts.
All in all, a very successful trip and as long as the winds don't go to the south for any extended time like last year then, it's looking like being a good season (touch wood).
We had a pretty good variety of fish today: Arthur Hori started the unusual catches with quite a nice John Dory, then John Elliott caught his first ever Kingfish (which was too small and had to be returned.) Then we all got into the business of catching very nice Snapper and Cordula Dorow topped it all with her 6kg Snapper. Great fish caught today and we caught enough for me to claim four fillets for myself as well. A definite bonus.
Please Note: If you'd like a full version of one of your photos, it's yours for the asking, just send me an email
Plus: I'd really appreciate your feedback on TripAdvisor. Help me become the number one attraction by using this link
6th November - Another beautiful start to the day. We had a full boat and really wanted flat seas, which was what we got thank goodness. We'd passed a large number of charter boats on Centre Foul and I couldn't help wondering if they knew something that we didn't. Anyway we continued out to our planned destination, dropped anchor and settled in.
The fishing was very slow to start and several times we were tempted to move. However, we'd noticed that most of the boats on Centre Foul had already moved and other boats all around the bay were also on the move. So we stayed.
Just as well because we got our first keeper - a 13lb Snapper caught by Hemi Hohaia. It was a very impressive start and suddenly everyone was really keen again.
Unfortunately the fish remained elusive. We agreed that there was no point trying a new spot as boats were still searching all over the bay - some were on their third or fourth spot. We were getting the odd good hit and had a couple of Snapper around 5lbs, so it was better to work with what we knew rather than gamble on a new spot.
We had a fantastic hit by something really big - a very large Snapper, a Hapuka pup or a Shark. Unfortunately we will never know as the lucky angler was a person who likes to set the hook several times with very vigorous jerks. Several more vigorous jerks when the fish was halfway up did exactly what we'd warned him would happen - the line broke and a fantastic fish earned it's freedom.
Ledger rigs have been catching the fish for us. The downside of these rigs is that if one breaks while pulling in a large Snapper, the spooked fish leaves the area and all the other large Snapper follow. This is what seemed to happen as nothing substantial was caught after that.
Them's the breaks ('scuze the pun.)
It was a hard day but the fish that we kept were very good quality fish. On the left we have a couple of shots of Patuone Hohaia with his 5lb Snapper (good skills Patuone.) On the right, Hemi Hohaia celebrates his 13lb Snapper which proved to be the best fish of the day. He set the benchmark right at the beginning of the trip but it proved to high for everyone else.
7th November - I had three forecasts, one for 15 to 20 knot SE winds, another for 5-10 knots NE winds and a last one for 10-15 knot SE winds so it was no surprise really that we found ourselves in dead calm water with no wind at all for the first couple of hours.
The fishing was horrendous in the beginning, with only one Gurnard caught. So after the sea breeze came in and nothing changed we tried several other spots but saw no evidence of any spectacular fish. Best Snapper was only around 3-4lbs and the majority of the others ranged between 32-35cm. The emphasis of the groups fish today was on variety and it seemed that nature was only too willing to oblige - Barracuda, Snapper, Golden Snapper, Gurnard, Mao Mao, Jellyfish and several Granddaddy Hapuka were amongst those fish caught today.
Did I mention that the winds eventually arrived? They were about 15-20 knot NE winds so the forecasters were almost correct. Yeah right!
8th November - Beautiful day, light to zero breeze, calm sea, hundreds of dolphins, very few hungry fish. There were boats drift fishing everywhere, it was a truly stunning day but the conditions weren't producing good fishing. We tried several spots and put some serious time into each. Although every spot showed good fish sign, it was only the small fish that were biting. We watched one of my favourite charter boats ;-) start to panic. This was not the sort of conditions that was going to make a 4hr trip look good. He did a lot of the searching for us as he tried more than half a dozen spots and eventually finished up close to where he started. Obviously he was having just as hard a time as us but when he went home, we still had another 90 minutes to pull something out of the hat. End result: Six fillets between four people - a meal for everyone (just.) Money isn't my first priority and it's soul destroying when I know people want fish to take home and we struggle to convince the fish to bite, so I'm canceling the next couple of days. Fingers crossed for Thursday's trip.
11th November - We picked up a group from Russell today. It was composed of almost 50/50 kids and parents. The kids ranged from 3-6yrs, so I was a bit concerned that if we managed to find big fish today then we were going to have problems. After a couple of phone conversations between Michael (the organiser) and myself we felt that it was workable and the trip was on.
The weather was picture perfect, dead calm, no wind, clear blue skies - perfect. However, as we all know, fish don't necessarily like the same conditions as us.
Our first spot was Puka Foul. We knew that people had been catching good fish in the early hours very near here but the "catching" usually ground to a halt around 7am each day. However, you can't take anything for granted so we put in 20 minutes here just in case. Then we headed out to Centre Foul where every man and his charter boat was hanging around. It was all pretty quiet but we quickly started to catch fish and managed to get three keepers. The largest was 35cm and the smallest 31cm. It was strange that none of the other boats were catching anything - must've been drifting over the only decent patch of fish I suppose. It was still too quiet for us so we headed further out to try for something better. Once again this place ticked along and by the time we'd starting to think about our next move we had eight Pannies (small Snapper) and a Blue Cod (on holiday from the south.)
Luckily, Andrew from Anglers Anonymous gave me a call and told me that his Skipper had just found some very nice fish on a well known reef. Andrew's only been here a year but he's put in some serious time trying to learn the area and think outside the square. Plus, unlike the other charter boats, he also believes in working as a team. Thanks Andrew, we checked out our favourite spot (I call it Puka 2), and scored a good number of Snapper ranging from 2.5-8.5lbs. We'd been fishing this same area a week ago and the results had steadily gotten worse each day so we'd given it a rest today (until Andrew's call of course.)
On the way home, we deviated to check out a pod of Orcas. We followed them into a bay off Tapeka and watched these monstrous mammals go right up to the edge of the beach. I'm guessing that they were hunting for Stingrays so they cruised in amongst the rocks and up and down the beach. I took a few photos but they're very hard to capture so I only got dorsal fins.
All in all, a great day with a great bunch of people. Very, very enjoyable.
The Johns Family hit the mother lode today. We caught a good range of quality Snapper plus we managed to find a pod of Orcas on the way home. It was a great trip and the fish bit all trip which kept everyone interested.
.jpg "November 06 - Patuone Hohaia with his 5lb Snapper(2)")
