However, those same beaches also turned up complete blanks this week, with no fish even visible on the sounder, so it's a bit of a lottery off the beaches sometimes.

The steady easterly winds have made some really good swell patterns though, and the surfers have been loving it.  If you are launching small craft or surfcasting be aware the surf has been UP!  It’s also been quite a bit lumpier out at sea than it looks from shore and the southerly bite is ever present.  South east is often not the best for fishing the Coromandel east coast and we have also seen plenty of days where the fish are very hard to find, especially off the sand, and can also be hard to get to bite.

Good lure fishermen will still get the job done but more anglers are putting their faith in a bit of berley and bait to lift the fish’s noses.

The moon phase is excellent for fishing right up until the end of May, so expect good bite times and some red hot fishing when you do get onto them.

In the past few weeks the fishing in the Mercury Bay/Whitianga harbour, including right up the river channel entrance has produced some nice pan sized snapper, kahawai and trevally.  

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South East Rock (GPS:36*48.156’S, 175*49.230’E) can fish very well up until the beginning of August for snapper and john dory if you don’t want to head out too far.

Moving offshore the Mercury Island groups have been fishing very well, particularly around the better reef structures and off the northern locations such as Never Fail Rock, Arimawhai Point, and the structure off Cathedral rocks.

The charter operators are happy to be back out with their clients targeting kingfish off the Alderman pins, and Cuvier pins when the weather allows.  As per expectations the kings are still there waiting in good sizes hitting both live baits and jigs.

This time of year the attention moves to deep water species too, and deep dropping for bluenose and hapuka starts getting productive.  If you have the weather and the range to get out between 130 to 400 metres than finding these fish can be worth investing some time with your charts and sounder.  Navionics sonar charts clearly indicate shelves, structure, and contour lines that are worth exploring, but finding your own honey-hole on the sounder and marking it is the only way to go as most anglers prefer to keep those hard-earned locations close to the chest understandably.

Here's a bit of detail from Matt Watson regarding using your sounder: https://www.nzfishingworld.co.nz/posts/how-to-target-bluenose-with-ultimate-fishing

There have been some consistent results fishing with the Catch 750 gram giant Squidwings lure for these species, and these lures are much easier than big baits to drop and retrieve when prospecting likely sign.  https://www.nzfishingworld.co.nz/posts/deep-dropping-with-lures

We have not had enough time on the water to get any reports on bigger game out wide that may still be hanging around, so we will update as info comes to hand.

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