Bay of Plenty

fishing report

February 21, 2020

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You’ve got to love having some decent weather, and variable 5 knots is putting a few smiles on faces at the moment. The Blue Water Classic tournament is on at the moment, and it’s getting some good conditions so no doubt there will be a lot of good fish landed over the next few days. Water temp is only around 20.2 so not super hot, but there seems to be good fish around and it may pay to watch for temp breaks if you are chasing game fish out wider.

North of Mayor, on the western side heading towards the Aldermans there are still reports of yellowfin being landed, but the average size is much smaller around 15 – 20 kgs mostly. Marlin have been active out there also, with one of our mates getting four hits in an hour.

There’s good workups including bottlenose dolphins off the western bays, and we got some nice crays diving out there last week.

The harbour is still fishing really well for snapper, particularly in the evenings either side of a tide change with fish up to 4kgs being landed, and in some good numbers even in the middle of the day.

The moon phase is excellent right now, so make the most of the good conditions while you can.

Out wide, we tried some deep dropping way out in 330 metres off the Mayor knolls and got a nice bass of 24kgs, not a record breaker but a very nice fish, and plenty of gemfish. No Hapuka for us that day, but they will be there as one of our fellow charters managed a few good ones earlier in the week.

Terakihi fishing has been great with our customers boating strings of three at a time still fishing at the Astrolabe and between Schooner and Motiti over the foul patches in 75 – 80 metres using small strips of squid.

Plate Island is also producing all sorts of nice fish for us at the moment too, so maybe look at that if you are lucky enough to be on the water.

See you out there

Cheers

Russ