After months of poor catches due to bad weather, sea conditions and cold water temperatures, Hawkes Bay has started to fire up on the fishing front.Good catches of shoalie snapper and prime gurnard have been reported from almost every location, from boat and beach.
Mahanga Beach, on the northern side of Mahia Peninsula, has been rather sporadic, with a few snapper and gurnard taken between the rough seas. Kontiki exponents have been plagued by huge amounts of weed.
Perhaps the most successful spot for the month has been Whakaki Beach. Surfcasters have taken good catches of snapper, gurnard and spotted dogfish. Kane Wrigglesworth scored an 18kg spotted dogfish to set a new national line-class record for this species.
While Kane was happy with that, he was ecstatic with his next notable fish. While cleaning his catch on the beach, he was able to get a stray-lined pillie into the path of a passing kingfish. After a one-hour scrap, Kane landed the fish, which weighed only a gnat’s whisker short of 34kg!
The members of the Pania Surfcasting Club that visited Whakaki on Field Day Number 7 were rewarded handsomely for their efforts too, bringing home 26 snapper in total, along with some spotted dogfish for good measure.
Generally speaking though, shoalie snapper and gurnard weren’t too hard to find from Mohaka right through Whirinaki, Bay View and on to Napier. Ocean Beach was a little on the hard side though, with mainly gurnard and kahawai filling the chilly bin.
The Pania Club also hosted the Napier Mail Kahawai Contest. A total of 90 kahawai were caught by just over 500 contestants. The heaviest kahawai was caught by Napier surfcaster Mike Percy, his winning fish weighing 2.3kg.
Members of the Hawkes Bay Sport Fishing Club found good numbers of 3-6kg skipjack tuna off Flat Rock, mainly in the 16-18m depth range.
Kayak fishing is starting to take hold in the Bay. Kayak exponent Adrian Bott has been finding good snapper and gurnard almost at will. Some very good kingfish have towed him about a bit before being subdued, too.
Adrian tells me that the fish are hard on the bottom, so that is where the baits must be for any chance of success.
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