Arline Fishing Charters - Fishing Report (September 2008) for Bay of Islands, New Zealand.

14th September - It was great to be out there. The day was perfect but we were finding the good fish to be elusive. After pulling up nothing but tiny snapper we went out to deeper water where we started to produce better fish. We returned a couple of Kingfish, kept a large Kahawai and a real nice Trevally and a few reasonable snapper. Not great but we had fun and everyone had enough for a feed.

September 2008

Bay of Islands Fishing Report

Sam House with his biggest fish of the day. Even his parents couldn't top this Barracuda

Mr Going with a very respectable Porae (Angela Jolie of the sea)

Russell hooks into a big one, unfortunately this one got away. We started catching Kingfish soon after so it might have been what Russell had on the end of his line. It was all good fun anyway.

20th September - What a shocker. We had stunning weather, little or no wind and hardly a ripple on the water. We were catching plenty of tiny snapper but were struggling to find a "keeper". Boats all over the bay were moving all day trying to find fish. We tried 5 reefs and although they were stocked with good numbers of fish they were either not biting or too small. We got some keepers in the end but it was hard work.

22nd September - Hammered by barracuda, it took a while before we got some good fish. Eventually we came home with a good feed for everyone. The catch included Snapper, Golden Snapper, Porae and lots of Trevally.

Magic day! Heaps of variety, fantastic fish, great weather and a hint that the School Snapper are not too far away.

24th September - We were hopeful of a reasonable catch but this time of the year is up and down. We had returned to our last fishing spot but were a bit concerned that the water was thick with some sort of algae growth. After half an hour we had only caught a mako shark. Just when we decided to move and look for clear water it really started to happen. A 7kg snapper quickly followed by a 4kg Porae. We caught very few small fish today, nearly everything was a keeper. Our catch included lots of trevally, several large snapper ranging from 2kgs upwards, a couple of porae, mako shark, and another barracuda. A magic day! Check out the photos below.

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29th September - What a day. The good old weather forecasters promised light winds until the afternoon when they would increase to around 20 knots. The afternoon obviously arrived early when, at 10am, every charterboat in the Bay raced for shelter as the wind and seas increased in strength and size. Unfortunately sheltered waters held no decent fish. So after an hour of unproductive fishing we decided to take the chance to go to the other size of the Bay as the seas and wind had abated a bit. The fishing was definitely better but still poor. Our best fish today (2kgs approx) was our worst fish last trip.

30th September - In complete contrast to the previous day, this one was beautiful. Very light winds and sunny. We had a large groups of kids from the Ngapuhi Iwi on board and tradition has it that the first fish caught had to be returned to the water. Terry, our skipper, nearly had kittens when lots of lovely snapper were thrown back and then it went quiet. Luckily the fish started biting again and we ended up with an impressive catch of 25 snapper, a ling and a kahawai. A nice way of finishing of the month, pity I forgot my camera for the second day in a row.