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.