A few fisherman headed off to the river mouth, this is 8km up the beach and with the tide perfect they had a good trip up the beach to surf cast at the river mouth. It's always good surfcasting there and they caught some good fish. It is also good for floundering at the river mouth and there have been some very good sized flounder caught there recently.

Later in the day a few kitefishers and a kontiki fisher set their gear out in front of our place. One of the Kitefishers set his Kite Longline out from the changing shed, this is a definite NO! NO! as there is three rocks just out past the breakers, one of these is known locally as Mussel Rock and it has snagged many long lines over the years.

The locals know these rocks well as, with the right tide and sea conditions, they collect mussels off the rocks and find the broken tackle. It is always good fishing around this area, experienced dropper rig fishers using ledger rigs would do very well there.

On Sunday the fisherman got lucky and didn't snag his longline. He only set his rig out once and wound up catching a good sized gurnard on nearly every hook. The whole exercise took him less than an hour before he packed up and went home with a near limit bag of big gurnard.

If you want to check out kitefishing, we are having a public viewing Paul's Fishing Kites Video at the Beach Tackle Shop 6pm Wednesday 29 May. We have a comprehensive range of Paul's Fishing Kites and long line gear and accessories in stock so you can check out the available range.

Gold coin donation to the Porangahau School. Light Snack and Drink provided. Give me a ring if you need more info Ph 06 8555112

And don't forget, if you are in the area you are welcome to call in and have a chat or record your catch and have a photo taken which I will add to this newsletter report.

Maureen & John Pothan, Porangahau Beach Motel

http://www.porangahaubeachmotel.co.nz

Muriwai Beach from Scott McMillan

Thursday 16 April

My first kite fishing trip for the year went well. I was fishing a couple of kilometers north of Rimmer Rd. My single set on dropper rig caught around a dozen fish, two were undersize. The rest were 6 snapper up to 9 pounds and one large kahawai. This was my first trip with a dropper rig which I got after badly snagging and breaking my bottom longline while fishing up the top of Muriwai into the Kaipara Harbour.

Scott McMillan

The weekend before last was great, with the exception of the red weed. We caught 6 good size snapper on our long line which we set approximately 500 metres offshore.

Smoked a couple, and baked a couple. Mmmn, mmmn.

I have to say, I was quite skeptical when my husband wanted to buy a kite line. But, I have to eat my fish.

It has been great, particularly for those of us who are unable to get out on their boats. A great family occasion indeed.

All of us get involved and the rewards are not only counted in the number of fish we catch. Here's to another good weekend of fishing.
Carol Hinge

Far North

Tenga from Kaitaia Air and Tackle Supplies reports the 90 Mile Beach is the place to be if you want to be catching good quality snapper. Although the fishing has been patchy at times there are some very good fish being brought in off the beach.

Hokianga Harbour is also a little patchy but the local lads are landing good fish.

Good reports coming in from around the Whangarei area from boat and kite fishers.

For the kite fishers there are plenty of snapper in close and the trevally have also arrived in numbers. So you should not have too much trouble finding some fish this coming weekend. With the weed now gone from Uretiti Beach and Te Arai there will be plenty of coastline to choose from when you want to set your gear out.

Warren from Dargaville Marine spent last weekend at the Mokohinau Islands where he reports there are plenty of snapper in the 3 to 4kg range. While many fishers try and catch the biggest snapper they can, give me fish of this size anytime, as this size is the most beautiful snapper to eat.

The water off the coast is still hovering around the 18-degree mark so the game fish have not disappeared completely. With the easterly winds earlier on in the week this should have kept the warm water in close. This weekend should be worth another look out off the coast if its game fish you are after.

The hook trial we are running between Mark and I continues. Remember, before I started using the Target Snapper Hooks for trevally, Mark used to get the most fish 9 times out of ten.

We have been getting lots of trevally out of the Manukau lately. It is so good in fact, we went out twice last weekend. As you will observe the graph is starting to look very interesting. Mark is slowly starting to catch up, particularly in the mid range fish size. I did notice last weekend that he is starting to snell his Kahle hooks and that seems to have improved his hook up rate. (I think he is resorting to copying to what I am doing after getting cleaned up by me over the last few months.)

The Target Hooks are still out fishing the Kahle hooks on 40cm plus sized trevally.

This little project has been good fun, and at the end of the day enjoying a good meal of fresh fish for dinner. If you haven't eaten fresh caught trevally you just don't know what a treat you are missing. Fresh trevally is very hard to beat as an eating fish.

This time of year snapper fishing out on the Waitemata can be hard work. My brother was complaining bitterly after a day out chasing the snapper in the Waitemata and catching nothing over 280mm. A sack full of Manukau trevally beats an empty boat any day.

If you are aware of any hazards to kitefishing such as snags or drifting weed send us a report and we will start a web page giving the info to all. Intermittent conditions such as the red sackweed we recently had at Bream Bay can then be tracked by anyone on the web and fixed snags can be identified for all time.

The club is holding a non-fishing, kite-flying day at The Esplanade, Mangere on Sunday May 19th 2002 starting at 11am. This is a particularly good day for those fairly new to kite fishing, as it is an excellent way to pick up some helpful tips.

Even those that have been kitefishing for a long time say there is always something to be learnt from the others in the club. Club members will be flying their kites, demonstrating how to tack the kites and retrieve them. All good information, and a fun day for everyone.

This newsletter depends almost entirely on it's subscribers for the fishing reports we post, the more subscribers we have the more comprehensive the fishing newsletter will become.

We hope to grow the fishing report newsletter subscriber numbers into the thousands so that we can give good coverage to all areas around New Zealand and cover more methods such as surfcasting and fishing from boats with rods or longlines. If you already enjoy the newsletter or want more coverage of your area you can help by simply letting your mates know about this newsletter.

You can help us make this a great newsletter by sending in your fishing reports to Fishing Reports Please include your name, where and when you were fishing, rig or method you use, wind conditions, bait and what you caught. It is also important to know where the fish are not biting so even if you catch little or nothing send the report in. This helps everyone maximise their fishing time and makes it that much more enjoyable for all of us.

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