| Kariotahi Beach
The west coast is still producing good catches of snapper and gurnard and it does not seem to matter which rig is being used. It is looking really good for winter kitefishing so don't be tempted to put the gear away just because it is a little cooler,
you could miss out on some great fishing!
Kitefishers on Kariotahi Beach are catching snapper up to 10kg with plenty of gurnard and kahawai also being taken. David Billings, the Kite Fishing Club weighmaster, was out at Kariotahi last Wednesday and ran one set with his Bottom Longline Rig just
before sunset. David pulled in 6 fish including two snapper a couple of gurnard, kahawai and one small shark.
Dave reported that a nice snapper of around 10lb was caught on Kariotahi Beach the same day by a kitefisherman near where he was fishing.
Muriwai Beach
Daniel Scarlett reports Muriwai is also fishing well. He was out there last Thursday and set his Bottom Longline Rig twice and caught several kahawai and gurnard using squid and mullet for bait. Daniel is keen for the winds to go back to the east so
he can have another go on the west coast.
Bernie, a keen kitefisher who popped into the shop recently, reported he was up by the bombing range end of Muriwai Beach last Thursday in the rain and fished his Flexiwing Dropper Rig successfully throughout the appalling conditions.
The Flexiwing
Kite withstood torrential rain and squalls for the whole day and never looked like coming down even though they were very hard to see when set, due to the conditions on the day.
Bernie ran 3 sets of 5 hooks baited with mullet on his Flexiwing Rig for a total catch of 8 snapper up to 5lb, 4 gurnard and 2 kahawai. This is almost a 100% strike rate.
It doesn't get better than this and Bernie can't wait to get out on the beach
again.
He was not the only one having success that day on Muriwai. Another party fishing up the top end of the beach pulled in a couple of 10lb snapper and one over 15lb. A great haul from their Bottom Longline Rig.
From the North
There are currently lots of kingfish around Doubtless Bay. Mark from Coopers Beach Sports reports there are also good numbers of big trevally about in the Bay.
According to Mark, the snapper tend to come back on the bite after a good blow so it should
be firing up there right now. Kitefishers around the Tokerau Beach area should be looking forward to a successful weekend of kitefishing.
The Ramco Cup was held in the Bay of Islands last weekend. Due to the bad weather most of the boats did not get out too far. Warren from Dargaville Marine and his team just missed out on the Cup on the last day of fishing. The winning snapper was taken
out off Cape Brett and weighed in at 12.6Kg.
Roger Martin kitefishes Ripiro Beach with a Dropper Rig. Over Anzac weekend he decided to try surfcasting for a change. Using a variety of baits Roger caught trevally and snapper. Roger says anyone with their longlines out in the easterlies would have
had a great haul of fish.
Manukau Harbour
The Manukau is still fishing well. We were out last weekend and had a great time hauling in some good sized trevally. We did not strike any kahawai at all. Fishing on the incoming tide we managed over 20 fish for 4 hours of fishing.
The full moon and
big tides did not seem to affect the fishing at all. The fish were hitting the baits hard and for the first time in almost a year we had three gut hooked fish. One on the Target Hooks and two on the Kahle hooks Mark was using. An excellent mornings fishing
and all good sized fish.
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Bodo was out at Muriwai Beach last Thursday kitefishing with a Flexiwing Rig and Skyhook. 