Bay of Plenty

fishing report

October 8, 2021

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Well, it’s been a Topsy-Turvey last couple of months, with the Covid restrictions, and some less than friendly spring weather seemingly conspiring to stop any fishing at all from happening. Finally, we seem to be feeling the results of the spring temperatures coming up a bit, and that is being reflected in the fishing once you do finally get out there. The last trip we managed saw a warming water temp of 14 degrees, which is going in the right direction but not yet warm enough to be bringing in game fish, and it was refreshing to have some pretty good results. Just out by A Beacon and then the Karewa Island areas, we picked up some nice 40 cm plus blue cod, john dory, snapper and a few nice terakihi.

Schooling kahawai are now appearing off Karewa, which is usually a good sign for other species also firing up in the area.

What we normally expect to happen at this time of year is to see the snapper start to move in closer as spawning season (November – December) gets closer and the water temp is closer to the 18 degree mark.

Already there are some nice snapper still being caught in the harbour, whether they are resident or early schoolers remains a mystery, and there’s also some very nice trevally coming out of the harbour too. Typically, the good fishing is along the banks or near the harbour entrances, where there’s a bit of change in the current pressure just as the water starts to shallow up.

Last year good fishing in the harbour went from November right through to near May, which is a stellar year, and hopefully we will see the same this season.

Purse seiners are out there chasing jack mackerel currently, and wherever there are good bait schools we can expect to look for bigger fish in the area, so keep an eye out for these commercial operations and perhaps patrol the areas they are fishing with your sounder active.

The best way to get a good run of snapper going at the moment is to berley up along any sort of kelp line in around 18 to 25 metres where the sand turns to kelp. There are some very good fish sheltering and feeding in these weed lines that will be tempted out to a stray line. Sometimes a really big fish will bust you off in the kelp, but that’s fishing.

Mayor Island has been nice lately, with visibility for diving around 20 metres which is nice and clear, and water at 16 degrees is a bit warmer than the inshore temps. There’s been some very nice kingfish caught out here on jigs, livies, and stick baits off the surface.

Later in November based on past years, we should get a run of both squid and paper nautilus coming in from the north-west and holding in the north-west bays of Mayor. A dead giveaway is the mutton birds on the surface.

When you get this happening the kingies absolutely love it and you can really clean up. Try using the bigger kabura style lures that directly imitate these species, just make sure you have the versions with a more solid hook.

We have not fished much out wide for deep water species lately, but we hear there’s been a few good bass and gemfish taken out back of Cuvier.

With the fishing ban now in place around Motiti, we are now heading more toward the Penguin Shoals, and Pudney Rock, which has quite a lot of nice foul in around 75 metres.

There’s pretty much every species out here, including schools of trevally that attract gamefish in the summer months.

The land based and inshore fishing off Papamoa Beach has produced some really good snapper fishing, but not consistently, so it can be worth a try, especially around change of light.

Good luck out there, it’s great just to be getting back out on the water with the sun shining.

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Cheers

Russ