OUT DEEP

The fishing out deep has been epic lately with a great range of species getting hauled up form a range of depths between 250 and 400 Metres. I have seen some of the biggest Gem fish ever some over 10Kg and the most Rays bream and frost fish in years. The bluenose have been prolific but small in size with the odd fish over 10Kg but mostly pups around 4-6Kg still soooo tasty. I have heard reports of 18 degree water not far north of White Island and Skippie's off Cape Brett up north so hopefully the Game fishing season isn't too far away and we get to see some yellow fin this year.

CRAYS IN SHALLOW

The diving down around Town Point and Motiti Island is great at the moment and not too cold iether
heres a few crays found in 12-17meters

I had out 5 keen divers and they each got thier bag limit  telling me the big bucks are in close the boys said there were a few semi soft shell crays down there aswell and big snapper eating the legs off the crays as they were being put into the bag. Good to hear this as its November the snapper straylining usually takes off  about now so that will be plan A for the snapper for a while down to Town Point for a night of big snapper on the strays in 10-15meters 

Soft Baiting

There is some great fishing to be had at the moment on soft baits as I found on the weekend when the bait stopped producing the soft baits kept getting smashed.
On the weekend it was some of the hardest fishing I have had in a long time but still mannaged to get a feed and some nice fish and have a great time.

Heres a 15lb snapper caught on a home made softbait by my mate Justin was awsome to watch and a personal best snapper on your birthday MINT!

Justin also got this nice frostfish later on that same day on the home made softbait again

HAPUKA BLUENOSE GEM FISH

The weather gods have being nice for a change, in the last week I have seen some of the best sea conditions all year allowing me to get out on the Mayor Island Knolls and target some deep water tasties. Fishing 350-450meters of water and catching good numbers of Hapuka, Bluenose and gem fish.  

SNAPPER

The Snapper fishing has been exceptional the last few weeks with the numbers and size of the fish picking up dramatically.
I have found the best bite time regardless of the tide and moon to be between 9pm and 2am using both stray lines and ledger rigs.
The most productive bait has been Bonito and fresh Kahawai and fishing in 20-30 Meters on the sand just off good fish sign on the foul the fish will come eventually especially with burly.

Hers a 4.5kg snapper i caught on my new 4kg Tica soft bait set used as a stray line.

A bit of luck

Every year my mate Kelvin Johnson and I fish the opening of trout season and celebrate his birthday by catching a few fish and drinking a few beers.
This years opening was on Monday the 1st October as i woke at 5.30am and started anticipating the day ahead and waitng for Kelvin to turn up I thought to myself why not flick the fly rod off the jetty and see if I can get a fish before we head out WELL! I saw 3 fish rise and casted at 1 of them hooked up and by 6.30 had a 4.815KG (10.8lb) Brown Trout on the lawn.

What a start to the season and at the end of the day our team of Kelvin Johnson, Geoff Dadley, John Bell and Myself had boated another 12 rainbow trout and released another 4 caught jigging, harling and trolling. 

Scallop Season

Once again that time of the year is here, where every man and his dive gear heads out to sea pursuing one of the oceans tastiest shellfish the New Zealand scallop. If last year was anything to go by this years scallops should be fat and tasty as they were well into the spawning process at the end of last season. I'm looking foward to comfirming my prediction on Monday along with enjoying a fresh feed of scallops. The Bag Limit per diver in the B.O.P is 20 per diver, although 1 diver is allowed to get 20 for the boats skipper, and 20 for the boatman (deckhand) thats 60 scallops total for one diver and 2 other people on board. Also be aware that you can NOT shuck scallops at sea and bring them unshelled to shore but you CAN shuck scallops at sea if you are consuming them at sea but within your daily bag limit.

Terakihi

I have been out twice in the last week and fished my feet first not going more than 3 Nautical Miles from Tauranga Harbour entrance. Both occasions needing only half a day to load up on beautiful Terakihi at a rate of up to 3 at a time.
These close to home patches of foul ground and papa ledges along with the abundance of Terakihi are hosting a wide range of tasty bottem dwelling table fish like Gurnard, John Dory and in the mid water range plenty of big Kahawai. 
For bait i have been using Bonito, Squid and last years scallop skirts, finding that when on the bite the terakihi will just about eat anything as long as your baits are small enough to eat.
The rigs I am using at the moment consist of 30lb trace with 3x 2/0 Wasabi recurve hooks and 4 ounce sinker.
I have been fishing in 25 - 35M on patches of foul ground and using very small cube baits.
I expect the Kahawai numbers in Coastal areas to increase rapidly toward summer as now the Whitebait are running up Rivers and Harbours. 

CRAYS

At the moment there are alot of crays around but in saying that you have to be very aware of the spawning and re-shelling of these amazing creatures. An experienced diver can tell a male from a female by its posture,  leg size , body shape and tale width if visible. A newley shelled crayfish will be clean of barnicles and fresher in colour - often more orange than brown. Different coastal areas host different spawning and shelling periods so there's always descent rocks to dive on.

July Terakihi and Bluenose

The past few weeks have have produced some amazing terakihi fishing often 2 and 3 at a time. I have been fishing deep from 60m to 110m with ledger rigs tied with 3 wasabi suicide 3/0 recurve hooks and 5 or 6 ounce sinker on 30lb black magic supple trace. There are alot of Mako sharks hanging around and they love to bite strugling terakihi in half or rite off the line. On wendsday 11/7/12 it happend 9 times throughout the morning but didn't stop the boys from filling the bin with king terakihi up to 1.3kg. We then headed to town point for a dive and even though there are lots of female crays in berry and a few with soft shells, the boys sorted through them and got 14 nice bucks to finish the day off. Out wide the bluenose have been biting hard some days and just sucking at the baits other days. There are alot of fish on the knolls at the moment and the last couple of weeks weather in the bay have been very kind to the deep water fisherman.

Sunday 17 June

What a day, we headed out the back of Motiti Is and anchored up on a rock in 68 mtrs and started pulling up 2 at a time red snapper and terakihi with the odd nice snapper after selecting enough fish for everyone we headed into motiti in the shallows for a dive and getting the desired amount of crays we headed home in not a breath of wind , bloody cracker.

FISH GOING OFF OUT DEEPER

Over the last three weeks the snapper and terakihi seem to have gone deep or lost thier appetite and the deper bite has come on strong ive had some good hauls in 65 to 80 mtr out the back of motiti on snapper golden or d snapper and terakihi. Out deeper the bluenose are still on top in sertain places on the knolls spawning this can mean its sometimes hard to locate them but once you do it is vefy productive . At the moment it is a good time to be deep live baiting for kingfish and hapuke from 90 to 200mtrs on shallower knolls around Mayor and Plate Is. I cant wait to fish Astrolab when this no go zone is lifted whenever that might be. I have dived just about every week all summer had an awesome season on fat scallops at motiti and some epic hauls of big crayfish from motiti town point area. The crayfish are scattered at the moment and alot of females in egg and a few sorf shells around so its realy important to chek the tales and posture of the cray before you grab it so you dont desrupt spawning.