Bay of Plenty

fishing report

December 20, 2019

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Kingfish have been one of the more consistent species to chase over the last few weeks, generally smaller fish in the 10-13kilogram class are being captured however there have been a few bigger specimens landed as well.

Capture of the week has to go to a couple of young anglers Jacob Earles and Nathan Cowdrey who set a shark bait in the entrance and hooked into something decent, they got quite a surprise when after a tense battle a 20kg kingfish popped up in front of them.

The Tauranga harbour has seen plenty of kingfish action, the baitfish life is quite prolific throughout the harbour and the kingfish have moved in with them.

Fishing around the bait schools with live bait or casting stick baits around structure is going well.

Snapper are starting to show up in better numbers and good sized trevally are being caught as well, the sea lettuce has turned up this year in large quantities making some areas difficult to fish. If you are fishing the harbour and getting plagued by the lettuce try moving around until you find an area where it is less of an issue, sometimes getting out of the main current and into shallower water can help.

Mayor Island is fishing well for snapper and so are most of the offshore reef structures like Penguin shoals, astrolabe reef and schooner rock, soft plastics will help cover the water but anchoring up and a big berley trail is getting the best rewards.

One issue has been the big numbers of sharks showing up, in some cases getting a whole fish to the boat is impossible.

These offshore reefs are all holding good numbers of kingfish and the fish are pretty fired up, now is the time for lure fishing with jigs doing well but the bets news is the stick bait action is definitely on now.

The trout fishing down in Lake Rotoiti has been outstanding, we have found the best fishing in reasonably deep water 25 to 35 metres working well for us. Jigging with Pat Swift jig rigs have been accounting for most of our fish however we caught all of our bigger fish on the Pro lure soft plastics, with a drop shot rigged koura (yabbie) imitation proving to be the big fish slayer.

Down in the eastern Bay area there is currently a Rahui in place, this is in regards to two missing bodies from the tragic White Island eruption. Various social media pages have been reporting the areas where the Rahui is in place and this page here https://www.whakatane.govt.nz/news/ngati-awa-rahui-update is somewhere you can keep yourself informed of what is happening.

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Cheers

Mark