Not much has been happening, but we did enjoy a superb day out on the ocean on Wednesday, 4th October.

We hosted three visitors from Western Australia on their holiday. Understandably, they were a bit worried as the wind had been very strong offshore; however, we saw an opportunity and took it, heading out with a cool southerly and a very slight swell from the South East. The forecast, which turned out to be spot on, predicted "Variable 5 knots" from late morning.

Our first spot was north of Motiti Island in around 70 metres of water. After two attempts to get on the spot, we finally made it, and a nice run of Tarakihi had our visitors very excited – and these were new species for them.

The snapper were sparse and small, with no legal ones kept, plus a small "Rat" Kingfish had one angler very excited with the strength of this fish. However, his expression changed slightly when I informed him it was undersize!

After a short jigging session at another bit of foul ground, we had no hits at all on the kingies, but it was still a great effort from the crew.

We also tried a spot that has not been fishing very well at all, but today (Wednesday) it showed very encouraging signs. It proved to be mostly larger Tarakihi than the previous spot but still provided plenty of action.

Again, no snapper, but our Aussies were very happy and had a great attitude as they carefully released a number of Tarakihi, smiling and stating that they had never caught that many nice eating fish.

We enjoyed a calm trip back and were in the harbour by 1:30 pm.

Incidentally, the water temperature was 14 degrees 12 miles out, so it is slowly rising.

Regarding the snapper fishing, one report further up the coast near Waihi mentioned some 3 to 4kg snapper on soft baits in close and shallow water, about 6 to 10 metres deep.

Cheers,

Russ Hawkins

Fat Boy Charters Ltd

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