I wrote this a couple of weeks back but thought I would share a few of my stories
Finally the weather gods decided to be nice for the weekend and with two days of great weather forecast we departed Auckland bright and early headed for Russell. Hopes were high as our last trip had produced snapper up to 11kg and reports were saying that the fishing was going off. Two days of 10 knot variables.......hmmmm better pack the tuna lures and a couple of 50w's just in case.
A beautiful sight of a calm ocean greeted us at the ramp and in no time we had the 50 rod's filling the rocket launcher and rod holders LOL
We had a slight problem when I flicked on the gps and got a message "GPS module not responding" **** it!!!!! luckily I had my hand held packed up the front so a quick change of sd cards we were sorted.
As we rounded Tapeka point it wasnt hard to see where the action was...... boats for africa combined with sporadic action from the gannets and dolphins pointed the way. It didnt take long for the sounder to find a rather large bait school
The fishing wasn't as hot as we were hoping but we managed a few nice fish to about 4kg. There was a surtees workmate not far from us and they obviously had the lucky rods. every time we looked over they were hooked up hard to something, We saw them land a very respectable snapper and got a good sized thresher to the boat. It wasnt our day on the snapper and it was bloody slow so we set the gear and headed wide after a quick trip report. A play with some rat kings on the way out and a couple of fruitless hapuka/bass drifts occupied the middle of the day but the bounce back from the swells off Cape Brett made it a little uncomfortable in a 5.5m boat so we headed back for a berly up once the tide had changed.
our spot had bait boiling all over the spot and it didnt take long to hook up..... Whammo
Crispy boated a nice fish of 6.5kg (sorry no pic) and I managed its little bro but its wasnt action packed fishing so as the tide slowed we made our way back into town to perv at tourists and enjoy a couple of quiets.
Sunday dawned with even batter conditions.Heard "too easy" call up and say they were at the ninepin trench looking for tuna(that you el robbo?) Very Very calm and we soon found some warmer water at about 7:30-8ish in about 200 off the brett.we got up to 18.3 as we headed further out
there was alot of current and birds in the area so instead of heading north we hung around for a few hours then headed north. only to find the water temp to be around 17.6 and water looking like shit. we managed to pick up 3 albacore out of some small schools and had a go at jigging them but no joy. We saw a few sunfish out there, with the closest being sighted just inside the 100m mark.
it was getting on by now so we made the call and headed for home.
"just one more bait?" ............ Why not!
it was all on! we found the hungry snapper we were looking for. Whammo!
Another great trip to the Bay of Islands and we will be back really soon! cant wait for new years at Rawhiti
Sea Biscut we fish for the Snapper in anything from 6ft of water to well over 300ft but on this trip most of the fish were schooling up in 90ft. I mostly fish gulps and other plastic jerkshad baits for them whilst my mates fish pilchard, squid and livebaits. using anything from 4lb mono through to 50lb as these fish scrap hard and try to bust you off most times.
In winter we fish the shallows for the big ones. heres a couple of trophy(20lb+) fish from this winter
Kyles 24lber
Strech's 20lber
my 22lber
BOX: tell me what words you don't understand and I will try and interpret them
Great looking bruisers Mozza! If they fight anything like their smaller Atlantic cousins the fight has to be intense!
Looking forward to more of your beautiful land & sea!
SeaBiscuit
Oh Yeeeeeeaaaaah - More action from Down Under NZ - Nice work there Mozz, now stop catching those Snaps and get into some of those Marlin and Yellowfin that are coming down the coast
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