saltwater fly fishing in New Zealand

MAY 2009
The 2008/2009 season is now over and I’m very happy to say that it has been our best season so far. We have been fully booked since late October and I have seen my wife around 10 times over the last 6 months. I have seen lots of good weather and great fishing, but also a bit of shitty weather and crying clients disappointed that they couldn’t get out on the water.

October and the beginning of November is absolutely prime time for huge kingfish. The last week in October is by far the best. Sorry it’s taken for next season! This is spawning time for the big kings and they hit the flies hard and fight even harder. Many have been lost but we have landed around 20 around the 20kg mark. I have stopped counting the amount of 10-15kg kings, but it’s a lot…. The kingfish took a little break around X-mas, but came back in huge numbers from mid January and kept going until Easter.

From mid December to end February we could almost walk on water on the Trevally schools out of Tauranga. There were some good ones in there to around 3-4 kg, but most were 1-2kg. Lots of blue sharks and Mako sharks were harassing them, and we spotted the odd marlin tail around the schools as well. In the Far North the Trevally moved into the harbours a bit later this season. It wasn’t until late March before we consistently found them in there. On the open coast though we had lots of them, but its hard territory to fight them in. Many were lost as for their size they are the absolute strongest fish around. We landed some amazing ones up to the 6kg mark, which is around max of what is doable on a fly rod. Clients still look in disbelieve when I ask them to use a 12 weight on a 4-5kg fish, but after a few bust offs and bleeding fingers they realize what I’m talking about.

Just as I thought I wouldn’t get any better on the snapper front Mr. Jules Fantarella turns up again with new patterns and new techniques to try out. His extremely colourful half`n halfs tied on Gamakatsu SL12- 4/0 are just killers on big snapper. Best session for him was 8 casts = 8 snapper between 5 and 9kg!! Jules and I have located the big snapper spot from heaven and so far it hasn’t failed us. Over 4 days of fishing Jules landed around 20 snapper over 6kg with the biggest just making it to 20lbs. February, March, April and May is prime time for trophy snapper. Fishing up to the full moon just after a big blow is the best.

Everywhere and nowhere? Some days they have almost been a plague and at other times we couldn’t find a single one. We got 2 between 4 and 5 kg this season, unfortunately both caught on 40lbs leader as we were fishing for kingfish. Both fish would have been world records, but thats life…. It seems like the average size of kahawai gets bigger and bigger every year, especially in those huge offshore schools. We have had enormous amounts of krill coming down the coats this season, so I guess they are just eating 24/7.

Unfortunately we didn’t get our big October run of huge albacore this season. The water was around 12 degrees in October and that’s way too cold for them. Hopefully next season it will be more like 15-16 so we can catch some more 20kg torpedoes. The smaller albies were everywhere from X-mas and way into February with some decent fish around 3-4 kg. Skipjacks were not here in the numbers and sizes we had last season. The average skippy was only around 1kg with some absolutely tiny ones in between. We didn’t have them in the huge surface foamers as they usually are and I hope the purse seiners haven’t killed them all just yet?? Yellow fin tuna? Basically non-existant this season. Not even the Big game boats could catch them??

For the Mako hunter there were plenty of little “rat size” ones to play with. The smallest one was barely hatched and would have been around 2kg and 50cm long. There were lots of excellent fly rod sized ones in the 20-30kg mark, but only a few in that amazing 50-80kg sizes that are the best ones. They tend to be either very small or enormous. A few clients hooked up makos that would have been in the 200-250kg range and that is where I go and rest in the cabin while they get spooled. Blue sharks are a bit hit and miss. We definitely get more makos than blues up to the boat. We have hooked and landed a few though with an average size around 40kg. This season we have had baby hammerheads just about everywhere. Perfect little fly rods sizes to around 25kg. It takes lots of casts and stripping before they spot the fly, but we have caught quite a few. They fight hard and they are all over the water column. They have terrorized us when we were fishing kahawai schools, sometimes stealing the catch 9 out of 10 times. We are still to catch a bronze whaler and a thresher shark on fly, but I am working hard on it.

Best season for marlin in New Zealand in many years. Stripeys were everywhere up the east coast. We went out ones to try our luck and landed a 135kg nice stripey. The blue marlin were here in decent numbers, but they are way too big for our little fly rods. We have had encounters with Black marlin this season, but as usual the mighty Black was winner every time. They average 400kg so what are we to do??

New species for a Saltflyer client!
Mat Roberts (UK) not only caught an impressive NZ Grand Slam (Kingfish, Snapper, Trevally and Kahawai in one day) but also caught a little blue penguin! The penguin fell for Simon Chu`s bleeding bunny fly. Mat has promised me a photo of the penguin as soon as he gets back to the UK again. Please don’t tell Greenpeace.
PS the penguin was released...