Schooling Snappers and Solid Hapuku

What a beautiful spring we have had! Flat sea, lots of sun and low warm winds. Life has been easy for us up in the Bay of Islands with the calm water and snappers, John Dorys and other goodies everywhere! Until the full moon last week that put full break in fish activity. And then came some wind and rain making life out on the waters a bit more challenging! Quite a few Vikings were out though and they did a great job enjoying the snapper fishing and their dinners!

And the snappers are here now. They have moved into the bay in good numbers with schooling fish in all the usual areas, from Whale rock all the way in to Tapeka. They have however not been the easily caught. The bite times have been short and different methods have been working on different days. We have had the most success with stray lines using whole mackerel and biodegradable soft baiting. Some trips we have all we want in half an hour and other trips we struggle to get enough for a feed. Sums up fishing well...

Kingies have still been finicky with mixed results and it has been hard to find consistent fishing for these guys. They seem to be moving around and are in one spot one day and gone from there the next. And even though they are around they are not hungry. Too much bait fish around???

Hapuku out on the deep waters has been good with solid results on the last couple of trips. Patience is the key here, and we don’t mind, as it hasn’t been fast fishing but good results when putting some time in on the spots.

The weather and water are certainly warming up and all the signs of an early game season are here. A couple of Yellowfin tuna have already been caught with one fish going 78.1 kg on the Russell weigh station.

See you out there!

Tight Lines/Hamish

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