Wellington / Kapiti

fishing report

April 1, 2022

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The surfcasting has just come back on big time in the last couple of days. It’s been great after a quiet patch through the full moon phase and southerlies, to see the fish come back on nice and strong. It seems to be a bit better from Paraparaumu north up to TeHoro, rather than south where it was previously firing. One of our staff limited out up there last night after dark, but there is still plenty of good fishing before dark, and you can still get them if the tides and other factors play ball.

***Wellington Angler Jay Goldsack with a 13kg Trumpeter***

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You don’t have to cast too far to get them as well, if you are careful to target the trenches and guts that hold fish chasing food in close.

There’s also big action around the Otaki River mouth with good kingy fishing available using the plentiful supply of live baits that seem to be congregating there.

Slide baiting etc doing the damage, and there’s been really good kingfish activity as a regular occurrence with fish up to twenty kilos being landed.

This gathering of kingies is in contrast to most of the other popular places recently, where the kings have been a bit thin on the ground for surf casters.

Out on the boat, it’s been a bit tough getting charters out there with the Covid effect, but plenty of our customers are out there doing well.

Snapper are in good supply in close around the mana Bridge area, and just south of the Bridge down towards Makara in around 35 metres provided us with an excellent mixed bag of snapper, trevs, blue macks, gurnard etc.

We had all sorts of fish coming on board as the tide turned, but when the tide started running out a bit more rapidly the snapper really became dominant which commonly happens in a lot of areas.

Just have to watch the spinies, as they can ruin the party and its best to move if you land anywhere near ten or so.

The harbour is absolutely alive with kahawai at the moment, and this is providing some fun action from the shore on spinners.

Not so much kingfish action to go with them, but there will be the odd big moocher around making a live kahawai under a balloon a solid option still.

Good snapper numbers in the harbour mean that it’s well worth a shot, and there’s plenty of by-catch in the way of gurnard, trevs and some really big blue mackerel.

Straight out of the unusual box… Inshore fishermen around Kapiti are picking up Rays Bream, normally a more deep water commercial species.

These piranha-like blue-silver bullets are a pretty out there fish to catch on lighter gear and in shallower water. Really aggressive they will smash most baits, lures, and even sinkers. They go pretty good too, strong like a big trev and give a good scrap all the way to the boat.

They’re great eating too, a fairly white flesh and lovely cooked using just about any method.

Normally a blue-water fish, these have even been washing up on some of the west coast local beaches.

There’s still albacore tuna off Kapiti, and the run of little bluefin tuna that we were enjoying seems to have passed through, although now is the time that the bigger bluefin models around 30 – 40 kilos start turning up off Cape Palliser and Tora.

Normally there would be more caught, there’s just not the angler traffic out there to generate bigger catch numbers and intel, but if you want to target these fish, now is the time to start trying, launching from Ngawi or Tora.

Another feature last week, some big trumpeter being landed, typical of this time of year.

One of our regulars scored a really nice specimen around 13 kilos on a jig in around 100 metres off the south coast!

Swells and weather always limit the time you can spend out there, but trumpeter can be a surprise when you are targeting kingies and puka.

Palliser Bay and Ocean beach is also doing well for shore-based anglers, with good gurnard and decent snaps. It’s typically a good time of year out there now, and went right through April last year.

Fisherman’s and Hunter’s have been fishing pretty well for tarakihi, snaps, blue cod etc, but don’t seem to be providing amazing puka fishing of late, but if you can get out the other side off the Brothers, and all the way into Stevens and D’Urville, it’s mecca there about now for big kings and snapper.

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Cheers

Pete

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