Wellington / Kapiti

fishing report

January 28, 2022

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Over the last few weeks, we’ve been blessed with some of the best fishing weather you could hope to get, and long may it continue hopefully. The buzz in Wellington has been around the schools of bluefin that have been around and possibly have now started to tail off having passed through on their way up north. They are still around, but a little harder to get onto now.

Being smaller fish around 15 – 20 kilos, there have also been some fishermen having better results casting smaller lures such as microjigs into them, rather than trolling the skippy or small tuna plastics as you would usually do.

A good by-product of targeting bluefin have been albacore, which are also a good fish to target with jigs if you get into a situation where they are around the boat.

There’s also been some good albies caught off the back of Kapiti too. We’ve not seen many out back of Mana despite some good blue water, all the action appears to be Kapiti north.

Bluefin – wise mostly the fish have been in 30 – 50 metres off Otaki and northwards.

Who knows, with the water as warm as it is, and the prevalence of tuna, there could be the odd sneaky marlin in there for those prepared to burn the time and target them.

***Some nice Wellington snaps for the charters***

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On the normal fishing front, it’s been pretty full on, with great fishing for snapper, tarakihi, cod, kingies and all the other usual suspects.

Our charter has been burning the fuel almost every day steaming out with plenty of folks keen for a fish.

West coast is the one, from Kapiti down to Ohau we’ve had awesome snapper fishing and got some good puka too.

Targeting the deep we’ve even pulled up a 15 pound snapper and a 30 pound kingy out of 170 metres!

The puka are certainly there, and some days we’ve really fired off whilst others have been harder, so you have to put in the time carefully navigating the bottom with your sounder to find where the fish might be holding.

Tracking banks and shelves and even trolling wee tuna lures around at 6 knots while you watch the sounder is a good way to find your next favourite puka spot.

It’s not always easy, as fishing goes, so spots that fire one day are often empty the next, and other times it’s just about being patient and waiting for the bite.

There’s been several reports of twenty pound snapper and one over 30!

The south has not been as fishable as out west, but the surfcasters have been rewarded with plenty of snapper off Ocean Beach when it’s fishable, with some really good sized snaps.

The land based guys up towards Kapiti coast have been doing well at night, with plenty of good rewards for the effort put in through the dark. The water condition is great, nice and clean, nice and blue, nice and warm, and that usually makes for some great fishing.

Snapper fishing on the whole seems to have improved off the south coast, and really targeting snaps either with berley, stray lines etc, or drifting with softbaits and jigs has pain off for a lot of anglers putting in the hard yards.

The Trench has fished pretty well for puka and bluenose if you can get out there.

Kingies are around in good numbers, with plenty being caught off Boom, quite a few out of the harbour, Flat Rock and around Eastbourne all being good producers.

Live baits (slide baiting or under a float) are the go, but there’s still been good results with whole baits and even stick baits.

The moki run off Palliser Bay continues to produce good fish up to ten pound, so all round, it’s a pretty good season so far down here.

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Cheers

Pete

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