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Mokau from Geoff Preston
Hi there, Geoff Preston here from Mokau.
The last few months have been a bit of a write off in Mokau for kitefishing with big seas and onshore winds. This week conditions have improved a lot with good ofshore morning winds and one to two metre swells.
Both myself and a few other locals have had good catches. On one set on Monday, with fresh kahawai bait, I hooked 23 gurnard which is my best gurnard tally from a 25 hook set.
Tony Johnson caught 17 gurnard and one snapper off his set while Ross Clements, fishing the day before, caught 6 snapper and 5 gurnard.
There are a lot of gurnard being caught by the boaties also but snapper numbers are down at present for this time of year.
If anyone is keen on finding out more about our local conditions here, about accommodation in Mokau or even kitefishing trips, please give me a call on 06-752-9780.
Cheers, Geoff.
Kontiki fishing at Monaroa, from Greg Hart
I finally got out for a fish after the shocking floods we had here in April. The area I fish has only just become accessible again due to the amount of rubbish washed out in the floods. We gave it plenty of time to clear to reduce the chances of getting
the kontiki snagged.
The day dawned fine and calm seas. After baiting up with octopus we set the kontiki out to 1200 meters offshore in 15 minutes with no problems. We left it out for 50 mins and hauled it in using my electric winch which I have been using for 6 months
now, it sure has taken all the hard work out of retrieving the line!
We caught two snapper, four gurnard, eight kahawai and a couple of small sharks on the first set and did another two sets on the day for similar results.
I have found it pays to fish the incoming tide or half tide in this area as the current picks up making it hard to get straight sets at other times. No snags have been reported from our beach so far and with eight kontikis fishing the area it looks
like it might be clear.
HereÕs hoping the weather stays good and the spiny dogs stay away for a while yet.
Waipu Fishing Report Lee Johnson
Just a quick one to let you know what is going on up Waipu Cove.
The snapper are everywhere! On Wednesday 5th May it looked promising with a few small schools of kahawai working about 100 meters offshore, the tide was coming in and the wind was from the northwest.
Being a little short on cash for bait I grabbed a dozen tuatuas at low tide and tied them on to the 5/0 target hooks with some cotton. I only did one set of seven hooks with my flexiwing rig and the rig wound up around 45 degrees offshore.
Despite fishing this shallow angle the result was a four kilogram snapper and we could have possibly had another one on as well because the line suddenly went slack after a big pull.
On Thursday I managed to get some mullet for bait, the wind was very light when we arrived so we put the skyhook on. I later regretted this decision as the wind got up while the gear was out and it was really hard to pull in it in, the two litre milk
bottle was lifting about ten metres out of the water at times.
It was worth it though as we caught two snapper, one a little smaller than the one the day before and a just legal sized one, which we put back.
The bad news is the red sack weed had started to come in and the rocks are covered in the stuff, fortunately only small amounts were getting caught on the hook section of our dropper rig.
Good luck to all the keen winter fishers.
Robin Ensoll Waipu Cove
We sent the Seahorse Kontiki out a full kilometre on the first set but caught only one pannie and discovered the dreaded red sack weed was back in the bay. It's not pleasant stuff, and is a right bugger to get off your line!
We decided to cut the timing on the sub back to ten minutes which gave us a setting distance of around 600 metres out. This worked a treat and 14 snapper found their way into the chilly bin.
We used the same system over the next few days to good effect and over six sets averaged 7 fish a time. We caught a total of 41 fish all up including two kahawai for the smoker.
All snapper were in good condition with a number around the 2.5 to 3kg mark.
Mathew Grant fishing further up the beach at Uretiti reports catching three good snapper on his big dropper rig.
Uretiti Beach Jamie Cullen
Robbie CullenÕs son, Jamie, went kitefishing at Uretiti Beach on May 4th and despite being a full moon the fishing was good.
Jamie set the gear to 1000 metres offshore and wound up with 5 snapper ranging in size from 1 to 3.5kg using sprats soaked in bonito oil and green rock salt for bait.
Mike Shirley 100% hook-up rate at Muriwai
On May 1st Mike fished his 65kg kite dropper rig at Muriwai in perfect conditions, a strong northeast wind was blowing, the surf was moderate and there was no rip.
The wind was so strong Mike needed two, two litre bottles of sand and three rolling weights to just keep the gear in the water. After baiting up with squid the gear powered straight out to 1000 meters offshore.
After retrieving the gear Mike was amazed to see a fish on every hook, eight snapper up to two and a half kilograms, and two gurnard. Having caught plenty of fish from just one set Mike packed up for the day and headed home to clean the catch.
Muriwai Beach from Len
I got to my spot about two kilometres north of the Rimmer Road access around 3:30pm. Conditions were perfect, a light north easterly was blowing and there was no surf or rip. I only had time for one 10 hook set of my kite dropper rig so I quickly baited
the Target Snapper Hooks with mullet and set the gear 1000 meters out, it wasnÕt quite straight but this made no difference, the fishing was great!
I caught five snapper, three gurnard and a kahawai - nine fish on ten hooks. I didn't want to risk another set and possibly stay too long because they close the access gates there at 6:00pm.
Tokerau Beach Report by Allan Boyd
On Easter Monday we had an evening fish, it was the first time we been kitefishing for a while. There wasnÕt much wind and the beach had a lot of weed washed up on it.
We went down the south end of the beach and gave our mate Ross Kay a hand with his kite rig. We put out his longline rig with only 10 hooks and left it out for 20 minutes as the wind seemed to be dropping, when we got it back on the beach there was
3 nice snapper on.
We were all happy as we had our tea! There were four other kite fishing rigs further down from us but I am not sure how they got on.
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