Issue 38 - 29/04/2007

Welcome to issue 38 of Current Lines.

Gamefishing UpdateHow this season will finish is anyone’s guess according to Rick Pollock on ‘Pursuit’ as over the last week the water temperatures around The Three kings have dropped significantly.

Around Cape Karikari the water’s dropped back to around 18.5oC and while there’s a few patches of skippies here and there, little sign of anything worth tagging!

As we move further north, the water isn’t much warmer, however the colour is better and the fishing improves with one boat getting 5 shots in a day recently.  Best depth was 130-150 metres with plenty of skippies in the same area around The Surville Cliffs, off North Cape.. 

On towards the Kings, and the area around The Hook and Pedro’s rock have seen some action recently. Several marlin have been taken at “Pedros” on the 79 metre Rock with 20 degree purple water there.  Most boats are in transit to or from The Kings, either early morning or late afternoon.  ‘The Hook’ has also been a top spot with two boats getting 5 shots between them one afternoon recently.

Around the Kings the Middlesex has great water (blue and over 19), heaps of bait (both skippies and sauries), large (15-20k) albacore, great kingi and bottom-fishing but no marlin.

Water temps on The King bank have steadily decreased over the last few days and are now around 16oC. There’s still a few marlin being caught however and most of the stripey’s are nice fish in the 115+ kilo range with fish being taken on both lures and bait recently

The latest from the Whangaroa Big Gamefish Club is that 20 striped marlin have been caught by club members over the last week, with charter boats picking up 15 at the King & Middlesex Banks. Two fish came from the Cavalli Islands area and three from around Stephenson’s Island. The average weight of fish on the banks is currently 115kg but closer to home the weight averages 85kg.

Those fish caught from North Cape to The three Kings have been taken predominately on live baits however fruit salad and light blue lures have been working extremely well, particularly further south. A light blue lure fooled a shortbill spearfish of 12.6kg near Whangaroa. Good numbers  of yellowtail have also been caught on the banks with live-bait and lures, with an average weight of 10 – 14kg.

Two albacore of 9.22kg and 9.86kg were caught at North Cape on lineweights of 8kg & 2kg respectively using black/purple and red hexhead lures, which are new Whangaroa club line records.

Stolen Lures - Weighmasters Alert
Would you please keep an eye out for some customised game lures - manufactured by Bronze Lures and with the Boat name "Waikikamukau" embedded in the head.  There were 5 stolen from a house in the North.  If you come across any of these would you please email nzbgfc@bordernet.co.nz or contact the police.

Clubs.Send through a summary of your tournaments to the team at The Fishing Website to have your tournament summaries and catch-list in the news section. Thanks to Sandra Moore at Whangaroa and Tony Fox at Mercury Bay for their regular contributions. Thanks also to Rick Pollock on Pursuit for his regular updates from The Far North.

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Tight lines

Captain Bill Fish
BillFish@fishing.net.nz

PS: Please e-mail our editor if you have any news