September 2009
Bay of Islands Fishing Report
2nd September - Winter is over! Yesterday was the first day of Spring. November is getting closer and I cannot wait for the great fishing that comes with it.
We had great weather promised for today, unfortunately there was still a bit of a swell left over from the storm two days ago. The same storm had dirtied up the water quite a bit so Terry made the decision to head out to Oke Bay to try for Terakihi. This is quite a big distance but is in very calm water and very scenic, so it gave everyone a chance to relax and get to know each other. As we poked our nose out past Urapukapuka Island we started to get a 0.5-1.0 metre swell. Although this was bearable for most, the combination of wind and tide put us slightly skewed to the swell and a couple of clients felt under the weather for a while. The berley trail got added to a few times as well.
The fishing was very quiet for a while and we seriously considered going to Plan B, when suddenly Grant hooked into a very nice Porae. The fish started biting soon after and a steady procession of fish started coming on board. Keepers included three Terakihi, a Trevally but no Snapper. The big Snapper of previous trips appear to have left the bay for a while.
We fished at a couple of places on the way home, off the Whale (hopeless) and near to Tapeka in the muddy water. Tapeka surprised us with frequent catches of Snapper and a few keepers around 30cm. We were having fun and no-one was in a hurry so we extended the trip for an extra 3/4hr.
By the end of the trip, we had sufficient fish for everyone for a meal or two. Not fantastic but definitely worth being out there.
Our Next Trip is 22nd September
- We are real eager to get out there again.
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.jpg "Grant Sipeli with his Porae (Best fish of the day)")
Grant Sipeli cleaned up today with catching, not only the most fish, but also the biggest (this Porae weighed in at 5.5lbs.) Grant did lose one good fish today - his dad's. While trying to get something really big into the boat for his dad the 80lb trace broke. Unfortunately Grant was holding the rod at the time. I'm sure his Dad will forgive him - eventually.
6th September - Fathers Day. The weather was beautiful today, however the light Southerly wind cut right through light clothing so a good jacket was essential equipment. We have had close to a week of cold southerly winds and that is never good for fishing. We headed out to Oke Bay to get out of the swell, shelter from the cold wind and hopefully score some Terakihi. It was tough going all trip but with the new (new) winch on board, we were able to try a few extra spots. Best score of the trip was a John Dory that jumped a small Snapper that had been caught. The Snapper was so small that our angler hadn't noticed it was on the line but he definitely noticed the Dory. We only managed one Terakihi and a few average Snapper. Strangest catch of the day was a large Blue Cod. Normally these are southern fish from cooler waters but we are noticing a few decent size ones being caught around the Bay of Islands this winter.
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.jpg "Mr Nordstarand with the John Dory that did not get away (600x480)")
.jpg "Lucy was the only person to catch a Terakihi today (600x480)")
Sorry but I'm guessing names here. Normally I write them down and check the spelling at the end of the trip. The John Dory was one of two hooked up today. The bigger one got off the hook just before it came into sight. Lucy did well with the only Terakihi of the day.
Update 8th September
- Murphy's Law, the wind changed two days after the last trip and reports are that the Terakihi went nuts and were being hooked up in huge numbers. Unfortunately we had nobody booked to go out. Now the weather is going to custard again. Here comes another storm. So we are not
sure when the next trip on the 12th September is going to happen yet.
Update 14th September : There is a huge swell of 3 metres so we're going to wait for it to go down to give us better access to the fishing grounds (where the fish are.) The competition took clients out today even though they could not get past Tapeka Point. Sure it was sheltered but did they catch decent fish? I suspect not. I see it as proof that having a "Qualmark" sticker is just something you buy not necessary what you practice. We didn't take people out because we knew they would be ripped off. This goes totally against the grain for us and believe that actions like this affect the integrity of all Charter Boats in the area. Both companies that were Qualmarked obviously decided for some reason that it was okay to take customers out and did. I have an obligation to provide my clients with the best customer service within my power - the day I see them as just a source of revenue, then that is the day I sell the business.
17th September - We waited and it was worth it. The swell hadn't dropped as much as we wanted it to, the forecast said 1 metre but as it turned out, it was a slow lazy swell that we hardly noticed. The day was hot, with a slight breeze and no other boats were around. Our clients were interacting well and we were all having fun giving a bit of cheek. Nobody was safe. The Snapper were coming on steadily and we constantly upped the minimum size as it soon became obvious that there were reasonable fish out there. Most of the Snapper kept were from 30-38cm, we also had one (unfortunately) Terakihi, a Skate and two sea snakes. It was a fun day enjoyed by all, especially me. Sorry, the boat's not for sale yet.
18th September - We headed out to the Nine Pin today but the results were disappointing. There were three boats out there but no one appeared to be doing anything spectacular. We headed back to yesterdays spot but although we had the odd reasonable hit, the Snapper were dropping the bait rather than swallowing it. In fact most of our best fish were foul hooked. Finally, our fifth spot pulled in results. The fish weren't as big as further out but we were catching them fairly regularly, plus we were also getting keepers. Biggest Snapper was around 35cm but we kept nothing under 30cm either. Although we only caught half the fish that we got yesterday, it was still an okay day.
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.jpg "Pulling in a Skate")
.jpg "Sea Snake")
It was a day of catching different species. Last year we caught a Sea Snake which was something that I never dreamed we'd see here. Today we caught two! The second was about 6-8ft long making the one pictured here look small. Pretty cool but no volunteers to take the hook out. Wonder why?
19th September - You could not have asked for a nicer day. Unfortunately, it is a rare day that performs so badly as today for fish as well. I started to believe that this was going to be the first trip in three years where we would bring no fish home. By 1pm we had only caught one Barracouda, one Jock Stewart, one Parrot Fish and two small Snapper. We had tried Plan A, Plan B, C, and D. During this time we had not noticed a single fish being caught on an other boat. We started around Deep Water Cove and worked our way back through Plans A-E. There were good numbers of fish at every spot but no interest was shown in taking the bait. In fact, with the Barracouda, we were in the enviable position of having more bait than when we left Paihia. We had two plans left: Plan E and Plan F (Plan F was send our clients to a Fish and Chip Shop). Thank goodness for Plan E, within two minutes we had a cracker Terakihi and steadily added 16 Snapper, a tiny tiny Scorpion Fish and a Puffer Fish to our tally. We extended the trip by an extra hour until we hit slack tide so we then came home. Tough day but our clients were good company and incredibly patient.
20th September - We debated wether to go out today or not. We had two opposing forecasts: one from the MetService predicting high winds and rain; one from MetVU predicting light winds and little or no rain. We decided to believe MetVU as they were describing what we were seeing out the window. The government funded MetService is usually highly inaccurate and often a joke. Today was no exception.
It turned out to be a good call. We took a large local group out who have been out with us twice before and they were all in good spirits. There was a bit of wind generated chop but apart from a bit of drizzle while on the wharf we had no rain for the rest of the day. The moment we dropped lines into the water we were pulling in good sized snapper. We had half a dozen fish around 1-1.5 lbs in just a few minutes so things were looking pretty good. Half an hour later it all went quiet, with the odd small fish coming aboard. After putting in a bit more but seeing no signs of improvement time we pulled anchor and tried a second spot. This was full of Mau Mau and we were being robbed blind, so we tried our third spot and this is where we hit the jackpot. We caught the biggest John Dory that I've seen this year. Not only did we get our first Hapuka (grouper) - we got six of them. Then Hugh caught a fantastic 9lb Snapper to top it off.
It was interesting that our clients today were saying that all the crops on land were 2-3 weeks ahead of schedule because of temperatures. I've started to notice the roe developing very fast in the snapper being caught and our 9lb'er today was full of roe. Perhaps, we are also going to experience an early season.
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 - 480x640.jpg "Best John Dory of the year (caught today)")
.jpg "Hugh was on a roll with this 9lb Snapper")
.jpg "Hugh with his best Hapuka")
.jpg "We managed to spread it around with 6 Hapuka between 5 people")
A day of fantastic fish. We left the wharf not expecting much today but came home buzzing. Hugh did very well with his (fish pictured here.) Everyone caught their fair share of very nice fish. The highlight was the Hapuka - we haven't caught a single one this year and today we got 6 in half an hour. What a buzz, these fish can grow to several hundred pounds so these ones are small but still very nice eating.