Bay of Plenty

fishing report

June 11, 2020

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Now is the best time of year for targeting the deepwater species, and we have had some nice gemfish and bluenose come on board lately. Top area naturally, the Mayor Knolls, that can easily be found on any of the popular sonar charts south east of Mayor Island. We’ve been fishing 250 to 300 metres off the ‘hills’, and I’m sure some people must be wondering ‘oh what’s he DOING going round and round’! Well, it’s really important to find a decent fish mark before you go to all the trouble of setting up a drift and its worth investing the time to get set up right to actually hit the mark. Often fish are also well up off the bottom so not only getting the right place is important, but getting the right depth counting your coloured/metred braid is key too.

Often the first drift won’t put you just where you want to be so take note of your trail to set up the next ‘corrected’ one. It is effort well spent, and reversing slowly back into the wind will make it easier to control staying on the right mark and keeping your line vertical as possible.

Fish may not just be holding on the peaks and banks, but you’ll often find them out on the ‘paddock’, so don’t be shy about really spending some time glued to your sounder when chasing these very tasty targets.

Motiti terakihi really good size, and still a really good run of snapper out there. Not extraordinary size, but big fat pannies that are excellent for the pot, although we did get an 8 kilo model that are always a pleasure to catch.

We’ve had good results off the knoll (south eastern end) of Motiti. Ideally fish in the current, because current brings fish.

Harbour still fishing really well, especially for this time of year, and in the shallower water off Matakana in sixteen to eighteen metres there are still great snapper and trevally being caught.

Cheers

Russ