Fresh New Zealand Fishing Reports

Will Barnett from San Diego USA only had time for a short half day morning trip but his dream was to catch a 40-50 pound yellowtail kingfish. Bait was a little hard to catch but we manzged to secure about a dozen jack mackerel before hesding to a reef that holds some nice kingfish at times. Sure enough 1st bait in the water nails a nice little 15 pnd king that grts returned quickly back home. Next bait hooks a monster of a kingfish that steamrolls Will into the reef leaving us dussapointed but also excited. Next bait again hooks a large kingfish and as the fish comes into view a 400pnd bronze whaler shark comes out of the depths to engulf our kingfish before our eyes! Running low on baits and time we move to a spot 2 mins from the boat ramp and upon putting the bait in the water it immediately gets monstered by a yet unseen fish. Lucky we were still over a sandy bottom with no chance of getting reefed so after a battle of 15 mins the huge kingfish comes into view and what a monster it was! Making the decision to keep this one fish we hauled it aboard. The smile says it all! Well done Will!

Its that time of year when the Snapper start there migration to the spawning grounds and spring is a great opportunity to take advantage of there good numbers on the open ocean beaches. On a recent trip with an Aussie client we unfortunately had much windier weather than the forecast suggested making fishing tough but looking at the Simrad electronics there were certainly plenty of fish showing. We caught fish in the inclement conditions and left wondering how we would've gone had the conditions been in our favour!

We've done so many trips since our last report its hard to nail down one great one because there has been so many! These fish are just a small sample of some lovely fish that have hit the deck of Strikezone over the last few months. Spaces are starting to fill for the coming summer so get in now so you dont miss out. Cheers Capt Jason Strikezone Sportfishing NZ

After getting busted off by some big kingfish our Australian angler did well to stop and hold onto this beast estimated at 30-35kg! It was nice to see it swim away strongly hopefully giving another fishermen to catch it again and experience the same thrill...

20kg king fish has been cought last week.

Despite a relatively slow kingfish bite during February the fish seem to be getting a little hungrier of late. This trip was a 3 day adventure with 3 Aussie regulars and while the snapper fishing was insane the kingfish only mediocre until the last day when the bite came on and the 3 anglers onboard all landing nice fish until the end of the day a monstrous fish was hooked nearly reefing the angler on the reef below. Eventually getting the huge kingfish boatside we were all stunned by the proportions of this fish. Easily in the 30kg bracket some quick pics were taken before releasing it back to the ocean...what a day!