Welcome to Current Lines Issue February 23rd 2012

The radio is playing “Run to Paradise” - I think I was just there in Whangamata for their Classic tournament. We had three glorious days of sunny flat calm fishy weather. Some 570 anglers went out, still a few short of the week before where their ‘Nautigirls” fielded 750 anglers. WOW! Now the highlights’ -  Day one started with a BANG - first fish weighed was a 196 kg Blue Marlin from the fizz boat “Wet Dream” from Shimano on the grid map, then a few Striped marlin and 4 shortbill spearfish, a steady start. Day two – from Shimano grid again “Bout Time” a 149 kg Striped Marlin, “Tin Top” a very nice Black Marlin (same grid area Shimano) at 156 kg, then the old “Bite Me” team, who a few years ago won with a Blue Marlin and the cries of “walk away” were heard thru out the tent, did it again on local Whitianga charter boat ‘Star Trek”, with a Blue Marlin of 224.3 kg. Day three - will the leader board change? Will we see some more great fish? The answer was yes, there were 5 more striped marlin in the 121 – 129 kg range. No blues or blacks but a surprise was in store, the last striped marlin to be weighed from the little “Mae West” tinny wowed the crowd and pulled the scales down to 173.6 kg and was caught in the Shimano grid area. Well done to the successful anglers and crew. (Trailer boats rule)

Nationals  At present we are 1/2 way thru our premier line class points score competition.  Day 4’s Results are online now and some stats following. Seems the weather has packed up a bit for the guys (and gal) in Wellington and also for the guys in the far south (from Christchurch) .... Hopefully it will improve for them again before the end of the tournament. 1,360 anglers entered to date.  Fish Weighed on Day 4: 1 Striped Marlin; 6 Blue marlin; 1 Shortbill Spearfish; 3 Mahimahi; 1 Mako; 5 Kahawai; 15 Albacore; 13 Snapper; 7 Trevally and 16 Skipjack  Fish Tagged on Day 4: 1 Black Marlin; 1 Broadbill; 13 Blue Marlin; 2 Spearfish; 13 Blue Sharks; 21 Mako and 12 Yellowtail and a sample from those returns - Tuesday, 21 February 2012 Billfish - The heaviest billfish(243.5kg) caught today was caught by DONNA PASCOE of team GLADIATOR on 37kg line, Striped Marlin -  The heaviest striped marlin (144.40kg) caught today was caught by LOGAN WRIGHT of team RED GILL LURES on 37kg line. The Results are now live so you can check them out on the direct link:- http://www.nzsportfishing.org.nz/nationals/results12/or you can get there via our website –www.nzsportfishing.org.nz Just go to NATIONALS across the top of the home page and run the pointer down to RESULTS and then across to 2012.  Right at the bottom there is a click here which will take you to a breakdown of all fish weighed or tagged for each club

Mercury Bay Well done to the Mercury Bay  Game Fishing Club for a new initiative. Go to their website www.mbgfc.co.nz then click on the bottom live webcam feed on their weighstation. Yup from 4.30 onwards you can watch the day’s catch being weighed live on the internet in real time. Local launch Kawailani reports tagging three striped marlin whilst fishing on the Barrier Banks

From the Naki – ‘Rendezvous’ and ‘Guns ‘n’ Tackle’ both tagged three striped marlin apiece on a recent trip. The local story is to launch at 5.00 pm, lures in at 5.15 pm and be back at the weighstation by 7.00 pm to weigh your catch. The local tip being the marlin are slightly north of here up to Mokau with 17 reported caught or tagged on 18-02-2012.

The news from Waihau Bay just gets better and bigger. From the 11/2/12 ‘Bout time’ 268 blue marlin, ‘Ranas Legacy’ 346 blue marlin, ‘Blue Lady’ had a quadruple strike and tagged one and weighed one striped marlin. ‘Runaway Kat’ not to be out done, tagged a striped marlin out of a treble, the next day ‘True Romance’ got a 223 blue marlin for junior angler Cody, and ‘Side Winder’ got another blue marlin weighing 240 on stand up gear for Tracey. Looking at the result online for the NZSFC Nationals the waters at Waihau Bay are still producing good sized fish in good numbers.

Last and by no means least from Houhora, THERE WILL BE PETROL AND DIESEL AVAILABLE FOR THEIR ONE BASE STARTING SOON.   Muriwai lad Nathan Adams got a wee surprise the other day, whilst live baiting out of his trailer boat ‘Western Break’ on a regular shallow patch looking for a black marlin, hooked up onto something big and fast. Eventually they boated a 335.4 kg Northern Bluefin tuna,  a pending World record claim. This is after a great week where they had good successes in trolling for striped marlin, tagging more than a few.

Editor