Repeat customer Dave was happy with his 17lb weight/74cm length snapper, caught on a light softbait rig.
Fish were a bit tentative due to the cold water (still below 18C) until the dolphins and whales turned up and herded the bait fish. Before long the gannets started working and that’s where we got into the big angry snapper.
What a pleasure! And what a great photo with Sail Rock and our own Mangawhai Heads in the background.
The salty sea dogs from Mangawhai Fishing & Boating Club came out on Fishmeister this week. Day 1, we headed out 110km north of Mangawhai for some deep sea fishing. Awesome to have the weather for this and beautiful to share some sea bass with friends. Very hard work though dragging up sharks from 380m deep, only to send them back again! Big thanks to Johan from Saltwater Connections, Whangarei, for putting us on the spot out wide and providing all the bait.
Day 2 was the Mokohinaus with another gorgeous day. The snapper were hungry and angry, and just got bigger and bigger. The catch of the day was caught by Brian, long-time stalwart of the Mangawhai Fishing Club, at one of Fishmeister’s favourite stray lining spots at the Mokes. This was Brian’s personal best, with an official boat club weigh-in at 11.24 kilos (almost 25 pounds). Congratulations Brian – we will soon see this fish mounted at the boat club.
This Saturday, despite the winds, we had Lloyd and his crew from Langs Beach out with us. The plan was to head to the Mokes but the sou’wester was pushing 30 knots, so instead we hid behind Taranga Island (the Hen) in one of our favourite spots.
Lloyd wanted to target kingis so young Daniel took a break from catching trevally to pick up some blue mackerel for livebait. Hey presto, Lloyd caught a lovely kingfish. So dinner was sorted for the weekend – kingfish, trevally and of course some nice snapper. Well done team.
We had the pleasure of taking out Ashley Hoyle and his crew on Monday. They were some of the most enthusiastic fisho’s we’ve ever had on board. 12 year old Jarni was an accomplished young fisherman who got his personal best snapper, estimated weight around 7kgs. Everyone caught some good sized fish. We had another PB amongst the crew who eventually landed a kingi after being busted off multiple times.
Needless to say, Jarni and the crew are keen to come back and we can’t wait to see them in action again.
Well it’s a long time since we’ve posted. Mike has finally recovered from his knee replacement and is back in action on the water.
Yesterday was the annual Mangawhai Boating & Fishing Club Easter tournament and Mike took a few locals out aboard Fishmeister to enjoy the day. The Hen & Chickens were at their absolute best and Mike managed to get the crew quickly onto some good fishing.
Ben Leese came home with his personal best kingfish at 970mm – 1st prize in the kingfish category.
Dean Bright picked up his personal best snapper, winning first prize with an impressive 10.35kgs.
Thanks so much to The Waterboy for their generous sponsorship and to the fishing club organisers for a great day.
As you can see, the fishing is awesome at the moment so join us on the water soon.
Well it was great to be out on the water after the Covid lockdown and what better group to do it with. Peter and his crew were all keen fishermen and we headed out to the Mokohinaus on the first fine day we could.
The fish were a bit hard to find earlier on in the day, but we eventually got stuck into them. Soft baits won the day as you can see from this 21 pounder caught by local builder Shayne Stuart – another personal best for Fishmeister crew.
Great to have locals out on the boat with us – thanks guys, it was a lot of fun.
Greg, Sandra, Marika and Mitch had a morning charter with Fishmeister. It was a bit breezy so difficult to fish a lot of our favourite spots.
We decided to fish in the lee of the Hen. Even though we berleyed up a storm, the big snapper were elusive.
The mackerel however did turn up so we caught some of those and live-baited. Three mackerel were sent on reconnaissance missions to a depth of 25m with a 100% success rate! Each mackerel converted into an XL John Dory. Great work crew!
Stephanus brought his family and friends out for a day on Fishmeister yesterday. A challenging sou’wester meant we could only fish a few of our regular spots on the hen.
Despite the weather, we managed to get onto some good size snapper, some really good size trevally and all topped off with a couple of kingis. The one shown here weighed in at over 10kgs!
These great fishermen are all soon to be locals to Mangawhai so welcome to the community team! You’re off to a great start.
Conrad of Hydroscape Ltd organised an early Christmas function for his crew and the guys had a great day out on the water. Both snapper and gurnard were caught with a few over 10lb…the best weighed in at 17lb. Two of the boys got their personal bests – yahoo!
The best fishing yesterday was on the deep drift inside Sail Rock.
Really nice to have the Pow boys back on the boat again and catching some sizeable snapper! It was a gorgeous day for a family reunion – good banter and some friendly competition made for a great day.
