We want to take you on an Epic New Zealand fishing adventure you'll never forget!

Epic Adventures specialise in affordable fishing charters and guided fishing holidays for one person up, giving you a good opportunity to hook into a decent snapper or New Zealand yellowtail kingfish. Tairua and Whitianga on the Coromandel are renowned for great fishing, and we have a reputation for putting people on to big New Zealand kingfish.

We want to put you on to epic fishing action, in an absolutely spectacular setting. We specialise in kingfish jigging, popping and top water kingfish, livebaiting, gamefishing and softbaiting. We recognise that a day on the water shouldn’t cost the earth and that each angler should get the full attention of the skipper. 

Put yourself in one of these pictures, book your Epic New Zealand fishing adventure today!

Check out some of our recent fishing reports below:

> Fishing Report 13 May 2012

An epic sized report here, with plenty of kingfish from two 3 dayer Aussie trips and a whole lot of one dayers as well, Tony guiding most of the trips with Carl away for a week guiding some regulars on a Three Kings trip.

Simon Skelton pictured here with a solid kingfish from a client hosting trip from the Aldermen Islands

For more of the hot Autumn action check the full report from aboard Epic here

> Fishing Report 6 May 2012

The superb autumn bite continues with a great bite of kingfish out wide, coupled with some superb kingi fishing in the shallows around the inshore Mercury Bay bait schools as well.

Brett Meyer pictured here with a very nice kingfish taken on a corporate fishing trip.

Check Tobes latest report here

> Fishing Report 26 Apr 2012

What a cool couple of weeks!

We were lucky to have Team Xzoga from Malaysia and Singapore over and it was a ball fishing for them.

Sailfish captains Sky amnd Steven Chong knocked over plenty of kings, including the beauty opposite to Sky.

We've had an awesome run of autumn kingfish, the majority released to fight another day.

Aussie lads James, Chad and crew had a blinder of a three dayer this week with countless mutiple hook ups each day and solid fish, Chad here with one of the many beauties he landed and released.

Check out some video action from the last few weeks, a full report and photos here

> Fishing Report 23 Apr 2012

Tobes has been having some fun on Sanity, some great kingi action and a few puka and snapper thrown in to.

Regular Russ pictured here with a nice puka taken from Cuvier.

The Mercury Bay just out from Whitianga has been loaded with bait and some fun kingi action on the light gear before heading out to the monsters at the Alderman islands or Cuvier.

The last week has seen some epic action on livebaits with a great run of kingfish through each day.

Check out more of Tobes April pics and report from recent trips here

> Fishing Report 15 Apr 2012

Jigs have been the killer kingfish weapons over the last few weeks with a really good run of kingfish on jigs.

The white Jigging Master Alien jig has been the best of the bunch accounting for plenty of quality Aldermen Pins kingfish, most of which have been released to fight another day.

Pictured opposite is Kylie from ReelFishChix with a fat Aldies kingfish taken last Friday and Steve from Aussie with a nice on an Action jig at Castle sland earlier last week.

The fishing has got progressively better through the week to boiling point over the weekend, with some of the day charters releasing 40 odd fish in a day, and most on jigs. 

Check the full report from Carl and Tony on Epic here

> Fishing Report 31 Mar 2012

The deeper reefs off Cuvier Is have fished very well throughout March and here Tobes has a report from his March kingi trips.

Craig and the Ozzie boys had a great two day at Cuvier with the opposite kegger of a kingfish taken up there.

Most of the bigger fish have been taken on livies but as you will see from the report jigs are working pretty well too, especially pink jigs.

Colin pictured opposite also had a great day at Cuiver mid March with a couple of solid fish in the 20's like the kingfish opposite.

There are still gamefish around, one of the crews had a marlin come in and buzz them while they were kingi fishing.

Check Tobes full report from Sanity's March trips here

> Fishing Report 28 Mar 2012

A few weeks of awesome weather and epic fishing!  The kingfish have gone crazy at the pins on jigs, the Bluenose have gone off their rocker at Mayor and some tasty hapuku and snapper to boot!

Jamie and the Singapore fishos were back for another multi day Epic fishing trip. 

Two days on Epic and they slayed the Bluenose to 21kg on jigs, nice kings to 20kg at the Aldies and Mayor and a nice hapuku to boot.

Ben is pictured here with a nice king on jig from the Aldies (G Spot), Loius with a solid puka from the hook, and Phoebe with a monster Bluenose from Mayor.

It topped off a good few weeks with some crazy days releasing 50 kingfish in a day at the Aldies of late on a few of our day kingfish charters.

Right now is a great time for variety, with some awesome kingfish jigging topped with plenty of other species on offer, espec for multi day trips.

Carl and Tony have an epic report for you to check out from the last few weeks here

> Fishing Report 19 Mar 2012

The NZ weather gods have challenged us a bit over the last two weeks but when we've got out the fishing has been epic!

Greg Mailman was over from Oz and while we were blown out on the East coast, Tony towed Epic over to the west coast of Coromandel Peninsula and managed to put Greg on to a big 25kg kingfish - a great result in the conditions.

We had our first group of Turkish anglers over who got some nice kingfish on jigs at the Aldermen Pins, and then Huharrem and the boys smashed the Bluenose on jigs at the Mayor Knolls. This is always one of the best times to catch fish on jigs.

For more reports check Tony's report from the last two weeks here

> Fishing Report 3 Mar 2012

With a crew of avid jig fishermen onboard Epic this week, it seemed an ideal time to go a little wide of Mayor Island and track down some Bluenose.  They luuurv jigs, and they'd have to be one of the tastiest fish, you've gotta be keen on winding though you won't get them in much less than 250m and we were dropping to 350m.

Coxy from Jigging Master Australia and Hunting Fishing Camping led a trip of keen NZ and Aussie fisho's out with us and we smashed some nice Bluenose on jigs and the boys nailed some nice kingfish on jigs through the week as well.

Stef is pictured here with the kingi of the week taken close to the back of the Aldies, very close to where we nailed some kings on stickbaits too, for the full report and photos read more here

> Fishing Report 1 Mar 2012

The last two weeks of Feb have seen a long line of epic sized kingfish hit the decks of Sanity, with some great fishing at both the Aldermen Pins, and Cuvier Island.

Livies have been producing all the quality fish over this time, while they've been a bit harder to get of late, the time spent getting livies each morning has paid off with some quality kingfish.

Tobes also had another encounter with a marlin taking a livebait  on the kingfish grounds, this time it resulted in a bust off, but it was a spectacular experience for the customers nonetheless.

Pictured opposite is Aaron with a Cuiver kingfish taken on livebait at Cuvier and Matt with a nice kingfish taken from the Aldies.

Check Tobes run down on a couple of weeks worth of kingi action here

> Fishing Report 26 Feb 2012

We've just finished a crazy week in the NZ Nationals fishing competition which has run for the last eight days coinciding with the Whitianga Marlin Classic and the Whitianga One Base. 

We've fished the tournament the last five years and it is always a good break for us to do something a little bit different fishing wise.

The crew consisted of Carl, Tony, Ants, Wayne, JP, and Ski.

The highlight was good mate Anthony Honeybone who has fished every Nationals with us getting a 106 kg Big Eye Tuna!  It was one hell of a fight and we had to scramble back to just get in for the 5pm weigh in that day.

The Big Eye took a Bonze Darter lure on the shotgun.  Epic Adventures took out the Tuna section of the NZ Nationals and Anthony got Champion angler overall and line class for the tuna section of the Nationals as well as the Carol Atwood Trophy for most meritorious tuna.

Wayne Henson, a regular who came with us to hopefully nab his first marlin and he managed to tick that off the list 2 hours into the Marlin classic and Nationals. We put a tag in this fish and it earnt us 2nd equal in the tag section on the Classic.

This striped marlin was taken in the middle ground near the Aldermen Pins on a Bonze Trojan lure.

Over the course of the three day Marlin Classic we had a few other stripeys on as well, one to JP from YeeHaa which we dropped at the boat.  The Bonze Trojan on short rigger and Azure Hayleys Comet on short corner produced these bites.

Some groundwork went in the day prior to the Nationals to find the bait, marlin and good water and with us was Woodsie and crew and Woodsie got to stick a tag in his first ever striped marlin too.

This one came on the Pakula Lumo sprocket and Woodsie did and awesome job getting the marlin to the boat in 15 minutes.

With the water still warm, lots of bait around and some full sized tuna showing up who knows what the next epic week will bring.

In the meantime check out the full report and pics from the week aboard Epic in the Nationals here

> Fishing Report 16 Feb 2012

An epic week of fishing on Sanity has been topped off with Sanity's first marlin of the season.

Aaron Ho getting a suprise when a macca livebait he was dropping for a kingi got smashed by a striped marlin.

Aaron knocked it off in style on a MC Works 516 jigging rod and Jigging Master PE5 reel.

It capped off a great day where he also caught a PB kingi.

The kingi fishing has continued on the exceptional path it has taken over the last two weeks, long may it continue.

Today saw plenty of bites on the marlin from the Hook off the Mercs down to the Aldies and with plenty of boats out in the Marlin Classic this weekend it is shaping up to be another epic week just round the corner, stay tuned.

Check out Tobes full report from the last week on Sanity here

> Fishing Report 11 Feb 2012

Its been another awesome week on Epic.  Plenty of big hard fighting kings at the Aldies scoffing livebaits and the marlin action is hotting up.  The hot gamefishing area has been the inside of Mayor Island.

Epic has had four stripeys and a blue on, with the one stripey coming to the boat, a nice stripey taken today at the Whanga trench near Mayor Island by Skirmantas, a regular with us. 

The striped marlin took the Bonze Trojan in Thriller colours.  Working a solid area of bait paid off with three shots and Ski's fish which put up an awesome aerial show for us.

Its' been another epic week on the kingfish with so many 18-25kg fish including this awesome fish to James last week.

The currents have predominatly been coming from the south which has kept the G spot at the back of the Aldies loaded with some big kings, the pins have also had good numbers of solid fish. 

For the low down on the last week and plenty of cool pics check Carl and Tony's report here

> Fishing Report 6 Feb 2012

More doubles and triples of big hard fighting Aldermen kingfish, the kingi fishing continues to be exceptional.

As you can see from Tobes latest report here the hot fishing action has not let up!

Pictured here is regular Hamish with the fish he was hoping for, and get got plenty over the course of one day on his recent fishing charter

> Fishing Report 1 Feb 2012

It has been a huge week for big kingfish.

The aptly named G spot has gone off and so have the Aldy pins, both getting swept by a strong southerly ocean current eddying up the coast and stacking the bait up for the kingfish to feast hard on.

There have been some monster fish like this one which went 30k to Mark Saunders from Tauranga and a solid mid 20k fish to young fella Sam - one of many kings landed by young lads recently

Once everyone has had enough kingi action we've been wetting the lures and have had another four marlin shots since last weeks stripey, all in the 140m - 100m line north of the Aldies.

For the latest report and pics from recent day trips on Epic from Carl and Tony click here

> Fishing Report 31 Jan 2012

Its been a great week for big kingfish on Sanity.

Brad from De Coro is pictured here with a solid kingfish taken from the back of the Aldermen Islands, theres been a long line of these prime kingfish.

For more pics and an epic video from a blinder day this week check Tobes report here

> Fishing Report 24 Jan 2012

Our first marlin for the season was landed today, aboard Epic with Tony guiding his first multi day trip from Australia on to some awesome fishing!!

Not only did the boys get into some fantastic hard pulling kingfish to mid 20K's over their three day trip but the last afternoon saw them get into a mad bite on the marlin and getting 5 bites in an hour with one stripey sticking and one of the lads getting their first marlin!!

Most of the kingfish action came from a great bite on livies on the guys first day fishing, with some horses landed in the mid 20's/

The last day the kingfish were acting pretty cagey, with one monumental smokings amongst the action, but some Epic marlin action at the end of the day made up for that.  The Striped Marlin was caught on the Bonze BTK, for more check Tony's full report here

> Fishing Report23 Jan 2012

There has been some Epic fishing at the Aldies the last few days.  Awesome 20K ++ kings smashing baits and when the tide has gone slack, a few for puka for the taking as well, this primo model some nice eating for Regan and the boys.

Check Tobes full report and pics from the last week on Sanity here

> Fishing Report 21 Jan 2012

Three hot spots over the last week have been the G Spot at the Aldermen Islands, Crackerjack at the Mercs and also Cuvier.  Tobes fished all three over the last week and got good action at all as you will see in his latest report here.  Drew and Dave are pictured here with a primo double of 20K + fish taken out the back of Cuvier on Sanity last weekend.

> Fishing Report 17 Jan 2012

After six months decking for us and doing his skippers ticket at the end of last year, Tony Carpenter got the helm of Epic all to himself for four trips over the last week.  He nailed it with clients getting some awesome fish to 24kg, the highlight this awesome fish opposite. A lot of the fish have moved hard into the Aldermens, probably due to the abundance of marlin now on the outer pins! Check all the pics and report from Tony here

> Fishing Report 12 Jan 2012

With loads of bait on the coast at the moment there is some kingi fun to be had amongst the Whitianga bait schools in the morning as Tobes details in his latest report from Sanity here .  Out wide around the Aldermen Pins when the East Auckland current has been pushing good water into the outer pins some epic kingi action has been had, Paul here with  primo mid 20's kingfish taken on livie

> Fishing Report 4 Jan 2012

What and EPIC start to the year!  Not only some awesome kingfish jigging but we managed to bag a 56kg bass today!

Hobbie from Sydney was the lucky angler and nailed it on a JMPE10 reel with 100lb braid and an Amberjack Sniper JM rod.  He was seriously railed on this fish needing close to 30kg of drag to keep it from the reef.  We caught the fish out the back of Red Merc.

We've had some keen crews out over the last week, including a gun crew of Japanese jiggers who slayed it on the jigs with fish to 25kg taking jigs and a few broken rods thrown in for good measure!

These Japanese anglers sure know how to jig, a very different action and it certainly produced some fine fish during their trip.

Livebaits are easy to get at the moment right up and down the coast and are producing some quality fish, like this 24kg specimen with expat Kiwi Hunty who was back from Singapore for Xmas and nailed a nice new PB kingfish yesterday.

Along the coast with the baits schools there is some good stickbaiting and top water kingfish opportunities and we've been having some fun catching kingfish in the shallows in the morning before heading out wide jigging.

For a full report from the last two weeks and plenty more cool pics click on our full report from on board Epic here

> Fishing Report 28 Dec 2011

Dec has been another great month for kingi fishing aboard Sanity, one of the Vogel boys pictured here with a solid fish taken at the Aldies last week.

Tobes has got a stack of photos from Dec action here the latter part of Dec the action has been hot at the Aldermen Pins with some crazy days at the Mercs during mid December.

> Fishing Report 24 Dec 2011

Another great week on the Coromandel kingfish. 

Various regular day trippers got into some awesome action this week with some cracking fish over the 20k mark, Andy (top) with a 25k and Simeon with a 22kg, both taken on livebaits.  Plenty of fish were hitting jigs as well, especially at the G Spot which fished real well on jigs in the tail end of each day.

The blue water has started pushing in close meaning the marlin and big tuna are not far away and the first reports of marlin and big eye tuna sightings are coming in - won't be long before the first one is landed!

Have a Merry Christmas everyone and cheers for supporting Epic Adventures this year.

There is a full report and pics from the last few day trips on Epic here

> Fishing Report 18 Dec 2011

We've just had Australian salt water fly fisherman Mark Josephs back in Tairua for his third fishing trip with us.  Mark loves to mix up jigging, stickbaiting, and fly fishing for kingfish.

Together with mate Dermot they nailed an awesome line of fish, including a crazy bite on jigs and fly on day three which saw 50 fish for the day released.

Mark got what he came for in the last few hours of the trip with a big kingfish hitting his fly and peeling off 100m plus of his fly line and backing. After an epic fight we got the 15kg kingfish to the boat - an awesome capture on the fly and fly rod!

Mark also nailed one of the biggest snapper we've seen a 12.5kg (27 pound) model from the deep on a livie set deep for snapper.

For the full report click here

> Fishing Report 6 Dec 2011

The last two weeks have been solid yet again on the kingfish front.  There have been some awesome days jigging with blue jigs in particular getting smashed by big fish.

Livies have also produced, Beth getting railed on her first ever fish opposite last week, a beast of a 25kg fish, her first ever kingfish!

We've had a solid line of jig caught kingfish in the late teens and early twenties over the last few days, this beaut 21kg fish on the new Jigging Master blade jig today by Mike Bailey from Tauranga, a great fish on the light JM 120 and Stella 8000.

With the kingfish feeding on squid, squid assists have been helping to get the bite on the jigs, for more photos and action from the last few trips check the full report here

> Fishing Report 24 Nov 2011

November 2011 continues to produce some mammoth Coromandel Kingfish.

Aussie boys Bert, Trung, Pete and Tom had one hell of a two day trip the last couple of days on Sanity at the Aldie Pins, with a good current pushing in from the north east the fish were on the chew hard.

There were plenty of hard fighting kings but these two took the cake, Berts going 29kg on day one and Petes going 31kg on day two, both on XOS yakka livies.

Mixed in with these kingfish were plenty of good sized fish hitting jigs as well.

Check the full report of their trip and the last week aboard Sanity here

> Fishing Report 18 No 2011

We've just finished with two more Aussie  crews who've enjoyed a top fishing holiday in Tairua NZ.  The Balls Deep crew were back for some more kingfish jigging action and Ross nailed a sweet 20kg kingfish pictured here on a 120gm Three Kings jig rod.

Before that Shamus and the boys were over for a few days and nailed plenty of nice fish on jigs as well, plus some nice snapper for the table. 

Craig's fish pictured was taken on a Nuclear Chicken 5" bait in the shallows during an afternoon drifting around the islands casting for snapper. 

For more pics on both fishing trips check the report and pics here

> Fishing Report 13 Nov 2011

Tobes has been having plenty of fun aboard Sanity over the last week with some great kingfish action every day on both jigs and livies - orange jigs and broken arrows the hot jigs.  USA honeymooner Whitney pictured here with a primo kingfish taken today on a livie.

CHeck the full report here

> Fishing Report 10 Nov 2011

Three days, 121 kingfish released and four absolute donkeys amongst them.  Jason Gauci and mates are in Tairua fishing with Carl at the moment and their arms are a hurtin!

Glen nailed the fish of the trip yesterday with a solid 31kg kingfish on a dead yakka on his Shaimano Stella 20000FA and Venom rod, having nailed a 26kg fish of the day the day before.

Jason nailed two over the 20k mark on day two and is pictured below with a 23kg model, from a day where he released 20 fish for the day.

The kingfish action has been superb with quad hook ups the norm through the morning bite.

All these quality breeding fish have been released for future generations of fishermen - the best thing to do with the big kingfish.

Plenty of snapper have been scoffing livebaits as well.  Fingers crossed the weather holds for a bit of cray and scallop diving and inshore fishing the next few days to cap off an awesome trip.

Check the guys report from the last three days here

> Fishing Report 7 Nov 2011

Plenty of Kiwis enjoying action packed day charters over the last week! The action has been non stop with fish high in the water column scoffing jigs, blue and purple spears have been a favourite. Local boy John pictured here with a mid 20k kingfish from an awesome early afternoon bite on Friday....we even ran a few marlin lures.....check the report from the last few day trips here

> Fishing Report 6 Nov 2011

There has been more solid kingi action on Sanity over the first week of Nov.

Multi hook ups have been the norm with kingfish feasting up large out of Whitianga,

Pictured here is Matt with the fish of the day today, caught on his T Curve and Tyrnos, a solid effort. Check the trip diaries from the last weeks day charters here

> Fishing Report 2 Nov 2011

Ian Gullock and a bunch of mates have just been over for a lads NZ fishing trip trip from Aussie.  They got into some cracking big NZ kings to the 26kg mark, plenty in the early 20's and topped off the trip with a sweet 10kg NZ snapper.

Pictured here is Tonto with his big snapper taken on a big livebait and Josh with his kingfish taken on the biggest yakka livie you have ever seen!

The boys fished three days of their five day fishing trip and also got plenty of kingfish on jigs, Aussie green and gold colours were the favourite as you'll see in the trip report.  A scally dive on a last afternoon topped off a great trip.

Check the full report here

> Fishing Report 28 Oct 2011

More insane kingi action, the best day of the week saw 59 kingis to 25kg come to the side of the boat for release, that girl Chloe again amongst the action.

A nice puka christened the new Teeam YeeHaa softbait rods, the skip even got in on the action...these rods are just awesome you could feel every tail beat of the puka on the way up.

Plenty of solid fish around too, Miles Cain was in amongst the action on Labour weekend with a 26kg kingfish from the Par Five.

There were plenty more trips with some new tackle tested including the new 120gm rod from Jigstar.

Check the full report out here

> Fishing Report 25 Oct 2011

More bust ups and big kings on stickbaits, this time it was Mark from Bradley Smokers in on the action with a nice fish to christen the new Carpenter Blue Chaser stickbait rod on Sanity. 

Mark and the team had a great trip with Tobes with fish on livies, jigs and stickbaits.

When the bite has died down the softbaits have been super effective on the kingfish as well, Nuclear Chicken Gulps being the star performer as you will see from Tobes report from the last few weeks on Sanity here

The kingi fishing has been consistently good over the last few weeks and Joel (pic'd opposite) and the boys found this out on their awesome Labour weekend kingi trip.

> Fishing Report 19 Oct 2011

With an awesome current pushing into the Eastern Coromandel from the north, and nice blue water the big kings have come to play and so have the big snapper.

We had our first awesome surface rise of kingfish yesterday and it was a great chance to test out our new Carpenter Blue chaser top water rod from YeeHaa, Chloe nailing a horse of 23kg kingfish on Carpenter Gamma stickbait.

It topped off an awesome day where the guys were on triples and quads of kingfish through the day, and some very nice snapper to boot. 

It all signals some very exciting fishing to come in the next few weeks.

Check more in our report from the last few days here

> Fishing Report 16 Oct 2011

Khan and the boys have just finished a two day trip from Whitianga with Tobes on Sanity and got some great kingi fishing in. 

They got a hot bite on livebaits, with fish of the trip this 25kg king to Bruce on a live macca.

Check their trip diary out here

> Fishing Report 14 Oct 2011

Paul and the Sydney Angler boys were back for another NZ kingfish jigging trip.  They had an Epic three days of fishing releasing well over 120 kings.

Some guys are just downright fishy and Allen was one of those landing the three biggest fish of the trip, all at the Aldies on the last day, going  25kg ,24kg and 22kg.

Two of them at pictured here including an impressive fish caught on 200gm rod and down rigger shop jig.

The first two days were fished at Cuvier with the fishing still hot up there.

We also got a bit of diving in, to get some fresh food for the dinner table with crayfish and scallops both in great condition.

Check the boys trip diary and more pics here:

> Fishing Report 10 Oct 2011

Three Aussie lads just got a good taste of the Coromandel on their Epic four dayer, with solid kings from two hotspots, the Aldermen Islands and Cuvier Island in the north. Sondal here with a 22kg fish from Cuvier, having snapped the leader boatside on a much larger fish at the Aldies a few days before.  The boys got some nice snapper on softbaits as well.  Check their trip diary here

> Fishing Report 9 Oct 2011

Regular fishos Tom and Nick have been back to NZ, having just finished up three days chartering the Sanity to themselves and their Epic Adventure saw them boating 70 odd kings over three days.  Cuvier was the hotspot on the last two days of their trip with a great line of kingfish for the boys, doubles the norm every drift. Check their trip diary here

> Fishing Report 30 Sept 2011

More metal mayhem this week!  It is well and truly jigging time now. 

Eight keen anglers from Sydney joined us this week over four days for a two boat trip and the action heated up all week with a real hot bite of Tairua kingfish on jigs on the last day.

Jim Sevastelis came away with fish of the trip a hard fighting 21kg kingfish on blue broken arrow jig at the Aldermen Islands.

Jim's fish came on a crazy last day where we nabbed close to 40 fish on jigs aboard Epic for the day, quads and triples on jigs were the norm.

Plenty of nice hard fighting kingfish in the 12-20kg range were the norm for the trip, Dave pictured opposite with a nice 17kg fish taken from a double on the western drop off a Mayor Island.

Still some solid kingfish on livebaits too and Noelsta pictured opposite took this beaut 20kg fish on day two on a deep set livebait.

For more photos from the lads week in Tairua fishing on both Epic and Sanity check out their trip diary here

> Fishing Report 25 Sept 2011

Metal munching kingi season is here folks!  We've had an awesome week of big fish crashing in on jigs on Epic this week.

Pictured opposite are a couple of Aussie fellas here for the Rugby World Cup who managed a few days fishing and got to tangle with some big beasts, Tim's a 25kg fish on JM rocket and Rendle's a 30 kegger on livebait.

There's been plenty of action on the jigging front with some days recently seeing more bites on the jigs than the livebaits.

Benthos, JM and Broken Arrows pretty much any jig with a bit of good lumo in them are all jigs that are working well.

Brad from Jigstar Australia also brought out a bunch of jigging newbies yesterday and they all came away with solid fish on jigs like the fish pictured opposite on an orange Benthos to Shannon, from a triple hook up on jigs.

The middle of the day has been hard jigging but the morning and afternoon bites have been particularly rewarding.

There's a wrap up of the weeks kingi action on Epic including plenty more big fish on jigs here

> Fishing Report 24 Sept 2011

With plenty of folks in New Zealand for the Rugby World Cup we've had plenty of different nationalities on board over the last few weeks enjoying the fishing, the Scallop festival and everything else on offer.

Tobes has a report from the last weeks action on Sanity here

With most of the bait (and big bait too) up the Whitianga harbour that has where the livebait gathering duties have been done in the morning and this nice fish to Brit Frank while catching livies inside the Whitianga harbour.

Plenty of corporates out as well and Gastron from Datacom got this nice fat kingfish on livebait on Sanity on Friday.

> Fishing Report 10 Sept 2011

Two big 20kg winter run Albacore tuna were a welcome suprise for two of Toby's anglers today.

They were caught on jigs from a work up and bait ball just off one of the kingi grounds.

It rounded off a great day including some kingfish on light tackle in close and kingis on jigs out wide. Check the full report here

> Fishing Report 9 Sept 2011

Regular Australian angler Mick Johnson has just finished another week long trip with us at Epic Adventures.

Every visit he seems to knock off a new PB or first and this trip was no exception!  His first every crayfish (solid Cuvier bugs at that!) , scallops and a new kingfish PB.

Each morning we caught some nice sized kingfish on light tackle in 12m of water off Simpsons Beach, a great way to start the day, then it was off to the Aldermen's for the bigger models, Mick's best est at 28kg.

All up it was a five great days, the boys eating very well on NZ seafood and some epic fishing action to match.

More a full trip report and photos check their trip diary here

> Fishing Report 1 Sept 2011

What a great way to see winter out! 

We've just finished up a four day trip with 6 keen anglers from Sydney.  We matched them up with 2 casual anglers each day and over the course of the four days we saw some freight trains smashing them about!

Wednesday was a day we'll never forget with a great line of fish and fish over 30kg gracing the decks off both boats.

Pictured here are Stu and Mario with the two fish of the trip very typical of the fish you can expect when the moon and tide are right at the end of winter.

For more pics from a great four days check out the boys trip diary here

> Fishing Report 27 Aug 2011

Marc Ong from Singapore has just done his first three day trip with us out of Tairua with Toby on Epic.

The kingfish played ball on the jigs, a good sign spring is just around the corner.

One of the boys proving here that bigger is better when it comes to jig selection!!!

Plenty of nice fish were caught by the crew, check their trip diary here

> Fishing Report 23 Aug 2011

We've had a great run of trips through August.

There has been some good inshore kingfish at Sailors Grave just around the corner from Tairua amongst the bait schools great for targeting on stickbaits and slow trolled livies, and out wide around the Aldermen Islands and the Mercs the kingfish have been feasting up large in the deep and hitting baits and jigs.

Its very much a matter of wait for the bite time this time of year and when they switch on all hell will break loose!

We've got a great line up of trip pics from the last few weeks up here

> Fishing Report 30 July 2011

It has been a matter of being there for the bite over the last week, with the weather cooling the fish haven't been biting all day but when they have there are still some monster kingfish around.

These two cracking fish to come off Epic this week, 32 kg to Marty and a mid 20kg to Aaron.  Some real big yakka livebaits from Sailors Grave were the ticket for catching Marty's fish.

Tobes has a full report of his July trips out of Whitianga and Tairua here

We've finally got some real nice settled weather and that looks to be holding fingers crossed for the foreseeable future with another big high coming across the Tasman.

Bring on some more monster NZ kingfish!

> Fishing Report 20 July 2011

Well winter this year is proving to be totally epic (apart from the weather)!

The last week has seen a run of very big kingfish in the 20-30kg range.

Tim Williams and his Dad Paul got stuck into plenty of these freight trains over two epic days of fishing, Tim nailing the fish of the week on the lucky red - our MC Works Southern Blue 516.  A dose of New Zealand kingfish action was just what the doctor ordered for Tim after a long stint overseas.  Their two day charter saw plenty of big fat kingfish hitting the decks, realeased to fight another day.

The kingfish have all been big and fat and often loaded with four or five mackeral in their bellies.

Most of this action is out at the Aldermen Pins but we've picked up some nice kingfish in close to Tairua in the mornings as well.  These fish a perfect for casting stickbaits and poppers to.

Hot jigs over the last week have been pink and the white Alien still working well.

There are plenty more big fat kings on the following page and trip report here

> Fishing Report 30 June 2011

The last couple of days have seen the great fishing  at the Aldermens continue. Regular Rob Tapert chartered us for two days and with an awesome patch of fish got his arms well and truly stretched.  Familiar faces Boulder and JP from YeeHaa got invited on the trip, both getting into some epic kingfish action on jigs and livies, and to cap off two great days, JP got this nice king on stickbait.  More pics and report from Robs trip here

> Fishing Report 26 June 2011

Some more big winter kingfish! 

We've given the new Jigging Master kit a thorough testing out, and the new JM Evolution Titanium rods came up trumps, stopping some freight trains! 

Online tackle store owner and well known fishing identity Boulder was out slaying the kings with us and the JM Titanium dealt to this 30kg brute on its first drop!

The kings have also been hitting jigs, and by far the best has been the Jigging Master Alien 300gm in White, Steve John pictured opposite with one of two 20kg fish he caught on it.

Plenty more pics from these trips up here

> Fishing Report 24 June 2011

Well June 2011 is proving to be an epic month! The kings are in good numbers and the size is getting better every trip.

Darryl Lock pictured opposite came out on Epic looking for his first kingi and boom...30kg!

Tobes has an epic line up of pics from recent trips on Epic and Sanity here

> Fishing Report 10 June 2011

Jason Ison and his family have just finished a three day Epic Adventure, out of Tairua with Tobez at the helm.  The result, four ruined Aussies!  The kingfish went wild at the Aldermen Islands, with plenty of the light gear as well, and as you will see opposite some solid kingfish in close to Pauanui Beach too!  Check the full report here

> Fishing Report 10 June 2011

Its not everyday you get the chance to catch your client a $10,000 fish!  We've just hosted Australian TV show Mark Berg's Fishing Addiction for the second time. Lucky viewer Steve got flown to New Zealand and given a fishing challenge for $10,00 in fishing gear. Over the course of the four days we got some wicked footage...  We'll leave the rest til you watch the show!  Steve is pictured opposite with a nice snapper caught 2 minutes from the Tairua bar on a GULP Pogy.

> Fishing Report 6 June 2011

The kingfish continue to bite hard out!  We're into June and the weather is still very mild and the Aldermen kingfish are in good numbers with all day bites and multi hook ups the norm. Tobes has another report here with trips from both Tairua and Whitianga experiencing awesome action on the big kings! Check it here Brett Meyer, a regular Epic Adventures clients pictured here with a solid Aldies kingfish

> Fishing Report 1 June 2011

May has been an awesome month out of Tarirua with plenty of variety as you'll see opposite, with so much bait around the kings, snapper and puka all there for the party but as usual the staple for us has been the epic battles with the hard fighting Aldermen kingfish on most fishing charters this month

While livies have been the most consistent there has been many trips where the jigs have been firing up and outfishing the baits, Brad Burden from Jistar Australia pictured opposite with a king in the early 20's on a Zest pink and blue jig, on a day which has been pretty typical of May with a wide open bite all day.

Late autumn and early winter are one of the best times of the year for quality fish biting right through the day and this month has been no exception with nearly every drop producing fish on most days.

After a bit of escape myself for a fish at the Three Kings I had puka on the brain when I got back, and the livies got set hard on the bottom on more than a few occasions.....this nice 21kg puka the result for Gooey from Aussie, a primo puka for the Aldermen Pins.  With this fish all milted up its a sign the pukas are on the coast for spawning time.  The guys also got into plenty of hard fighting New Zealand kingfish on their trip as well....in fact one pulled a little too hard....

Plenty of snapper around too, most of the kingi reefs are packed with a feed of snapper, the bigger fish taking live or dead baits and the shallows are filling up with fish that are prime targets to cast to with softbaits.

More photos and pics here

> Fishing Report 16 May 2011

May has been its brilliant best with some epic fishing.  Plenty of weather systems coming in from the north west have kept the water warm and meant we've had a few spells on land but when we're back out the fishing has been superb.

Autumn is a great time for all day bites and there have been plenty of those, and many days where jigs have produced quality fish right through the day.

Pictured opposite is Tim with a nice fish in the 20's taken on livie and Dean with a top fish taken on a jig from a wicked all day bite on jigs.

Hot jigs have been the Zest leaf jig and YeeHaa KV jig from the boat show has been slaying them too.

Check out the full report from the last few weeks on Sanity here

> Fishing Report 26 April 2011

What an awesome Easter!  The kingfish showed up big time in the shallows with fish up to 20kg in close to Pauanui, including this 16kg fish on a GT Minnow stickbait to Scotty Gordon.  It doesn't get much better than top waer action and a big Tairua kingfish smashing a stickbait right in front of your eyes.

The last two weeks have just been awesome with big kings and nice lines of snapper every day.

Out wide the Furuno Navnet has been loaded with kingfish and we've had all day bites of big kings at the Aldermen Pins, a prime example seen opposite to Michael Main weighing at 22kg.

Jigs have still been working well and a wide range of colours and styles proudcing fish, but the hot jigs this week were the bright Action Import styles.

Taupo trout guide Andrew Christmas also got to experience just how these kingfish pull hard and bagged a nice 20kg kingfish which he weighed for his local Taupo club, pictured opposite

For more pics from the last two weeks on Epic, and a report on a rod testing mission with the Phenix pro, check the full report and pics here

> Fishing Report 24 April 2011

Tobes has just loaded up a report from the last months action on Sanity which you can check out here

The start of April saw the Mercury Pins firing and that is where Sanity spent a fair bit of time, with big days of non stop kingfish on jigs.  Very similar to the action in August and Sept when the conditions are right Crackerjack reef is holding some big numbers of fish and some days saw 40+ fish in a day.

Pictured opposite is a nice double of kingfish and snapper taken from Crackerjack.

The tail end of April saw the bite shift down to the Aldies and plenty of kings in the 14-20kg range.

Time to get amongst the action fellas, book your trip now while the kings are biting hard!

> Fishing Report 8 April 2011

The kings have carried on biting the jigs hard out, and as you can see for the last week Orange is where its at!

Sean Cummings and mate Mario pictured opposite with big healthy kings which both chomped into Orange Broken Arrow jigs. 

A good warm up for their Three Kings trip this week.  Sean was a regular on our old boat and gave the new Senator a big rap.

If anything the kingfish at present are biting jigs ahead of livebait, but over the next week that could all change.

Both the G Spot and the Supermarket have been firing on the jigging front, for more pics and report click here

> Fishing Report 2 April 2011

It was a great finish to March for Sanity with plenty of big fat kingfish hitting livebait, plenty of anglers leaving Whitianga destined for the Aldermen Pins.

The Aldermen pins were the hotspot mid March with the bite moving further south to the G Spot outside the Aldermens themselves as the current kicked in from the south.

These two kingfish pictured opposite are prime examples of some of the freight trains on offer at the moment and they will only get fatter over Autumn and thru winter.

As the water is starting to cool  and the fish move out of the Hauraki Gulf the Mercury Pins and Crackerjack should start firing, stay tuned for some more action from that neck of the woods.

Check out the late March action here

> Fishing Report 1 April 2011

JIGS ON! Kim Lock and the boys from Singapore were back for their fourth jigging trip in two years. It was great to have the guys back and they were just luvin being on the new Senator!

These guys are staunch jiggers so it was lures only, and a good chance to see what we could turn up just sticking with jigs for a few days.

We fished the Aldermen Pins for most of the trip and the new Senator had its first play north of the Mercs fishing the Mercs Pins as well.  The guys produced some real nice fish on jigs, Johns's best above at 23kg on a Pink rocket, a grey spike style jig producing the most fish and this fish opposite to Kim on a rocket style in matt finish. The guys also had some fun on softbaits and Salt Water Fly. For more pics and a report click here

> Fishing Report 18 Mar 2011

Garry Johns together with brothers Les and Mick and mate Dave have just finished a week long trip and hit some awesome fishing out of Tairua.

All the fellas got into some fat kingfish which are around in numbers in close to the Aldermen Islands thanks to some very nice water, bait and current.

Together with that bait are plenty of marlin and we put a few hours in chasing them and came up trumps with a nice fat striped marlin - again it came on the Bonze Apache.

We got hit in about 240m of water straight behind the Aldermen Islands.  It was a real stubborn fish that put up an awesome aerial show and a dogged fight around the boat.

While fishing for kingfish during the week we saw some big black marlin chasing bait, not to mention plenty of free jumping stripies and stripes smashing up saurie.

The boys all had a great week in Tairua, but Gary came away with a pretty sweet trifecta of fish with a 20K kingfish, a striped marlin and also a 8.5 kg snapper, pictured above, caught on one of Gulps new 4" worms - in Nuclear Chicken of course!  A great effort on the snapper, pulled from 6m of foul!

The water temps are unusually warm for March with temps this week still up around the 22 degree mark in places.

Check the full report of the guys report and some awesome kingi action here

> Fishing Report 15 Mar 2011

Tobes has been having a blinder on the kingfish and snapper with plenty of day trips all getting into some awesome action over the last three weeks.

Check his report and pics from three solid weeks of fishing here.

The Aldermen Pins have been producing the line share of the fish on livebaits, and the last few days have seen some of the bigger specimens showing up, before that a very nice line of big snapper.

Pictured here is Rob Tapert with a very nice 6.5kg snapper taken on a livebait out of the deep at the pins.

Also pictured here is 'Irish' with a hog of a kingfish taken from a hot bite at the Par Five over the weekend with all the fellas getting into some solid kingfish.

Big kingfish, big snapper does it get any better?

> Fishing Report 14 Mar 2011

Well there are still plenty of marlin around and some big kingfish to boot. We had some good fun over the weekend fishing the Tairua Ladies comp, and the crew we assembled took out 1st, 2nd and 3rd kingfish regular fisho Hayley Bonnici taking out biggest fish overall with this 23.5kg kingfish, caught in front of a big audience of other boats fishing the comp, and awesome effort!  Well done Hayley!

It was an awesome week building up to the comp and we managed to bag another striped marlin on the new Senator from an hours worth of trolling, once again a striped marlin choosing to devour the Bonze Apache, in black over orange skirt. The angler Darren Cade who has been watching our website for the last two years and in the end he just had to come and get into some kingfish action!  The stripey came from some very good bait sign in on the 100m line close to the Aldermen Islands very close to Tairua.

The stripey was an added bonus and Darren managed to get his arms well and truly stretched on some solid kingfish in his three days of fishing. 

For more from the last week check our report and photos here

> Fishing Report 27 Feb 2011

Make that four marlin for the week!

It was back to business as usual today chasing the kingis on braid, oh, it would be rude not to stick a couple of lures out on the way........we didn't even have the full set in the water before a stripey came up on the Bonze Apache (in Black/Orange this time) and smashed it out of the rigger.

Mike Kellow was on the rod and on 15kg it was an epic fight with the fish greyhounding and going ballistic out the back.

My deckie for the day Gus had a tough first task on his first day on board - gaffing his first ever marlin, with a very green fish on the boat after being caught on 15kg he nailed it.

A very rapt crew then went on to get a nice haul of snapper and kingfish - what a day!!

> Fishing Report 26 Feb 2011

The new Senator has landed its first three marlin!  It certainly seems to pull the fish!

We bagged two marlin today on the last day of the Nationals to Mick and George, Mick Johnson from Australia with a nice striped marlin from a double, and a 110kg Blue Marlin to George Reed later that day.

Both anglers had joined us earlier in the week, fishing the NZ Nationals and Mick had tagged his first marlin earlier in the week, a nice striped marlin up on the Hook off Whitianga. 

That day the boat raised five fish, and the one we managed to tag came on the Bonze Apache in Evil.  Mick had the fish to the boat in half an hour on 15kg line and it was tagged in good condition.

We spent some time during the week targeting other species on the lightest line possible.

George bagged 1st prize in the Nationals in the 8kg line class for a 17.8kg kingfish caught from the Aldermen Pins. Needless so say fishing everything down to 3kg line there were several smokings over the week!

With snapper, trevally, kahawai and tuna also being caught on 3kg line we managed to take out top Tairua boat on points with over 1500 points from the best scoring fish of each species.

The last day took the cake a day none of us on board will ever forget with two marlin from about an hours worth of trolling!

Mick's stripey hit THAT lure again, the Bonze Apache in Evil, this time on the short rigger.  As we were clearing the gear the Zuker 3.5 in green yellow got whacked and for a short time we had two on, and had to dodge another lit up striped marlin as we were backing down on Mick's fish!!!!  Just crazy times.

By now he was a gun on the marlin and had it knocked over pretty quick on 24kg line despite it being tail wrapped late in the fight, which meant we put it on board for smoking instead of tagging it.

We were itching to knock off another species, more specifically a Blue Marlin and had not gone 10 minutes before THAT lure got hit again, Jesus that Bonze Apache was evil......

George was on strike this time and with a Blue going absolutely ballistic out the back of the boat he had to do some hard grinding on the reel to stay attached!

We had the feisty Blue to the boat in half an hour and made the call to stick the gaff into him.  There was a bit of carnage as the fish came aboard when I ended up with the end of the gaff in my leg as well....there ended a great day and we headed in to weigh the two fish and have a few bourbons to celebrate an awesome day!

We are rapt with how the new boat and electronics put us on the fish, especially the SST colour changes on the trackline of the Navnet, the Senator was a dream to fish off over the week.

With such a good patch of marlin and bait and warm water around, it looks like the game season will last for a time yet!

Check out the full report from the Nationals here

> Fishing Report 20 Feb 2011

February's big kingfish continue to roll, there is a great line up of fish on the diary from the last three weeks aboard Sanity here check it out there is a line up of mega kingfish

As per usual for February most kingfish have been taken on livies, and the jigging will kick back into gear in March well and truly.

There have been some stunning days with consistently big fish hitting the decks.

Pictured above is Jac with a nice fish pushing 20kg from a day where the girls kicked the boys butts (aye Chalky).

This munter of a kingfish opposite had to be round the 30kg mark and got released to fight another day.

> Fishing Report 11 Feb 2011

After six months being built, fitted and surveyed, the new "Epic Adventures" a 7.5m purpose built Senator, which will replace our current Tairua boat has been launched and we are rapt with the result.

If you didn't follow the progress as it was built, you can read through the diary of her boat build here complete with Furuno Navnet 3D sounder, radar and plotter, a Yahama F 250 DETX outboard, forward casting platform for top water/poppers, curved splash back for holding position while jigging, three live bait tanks and tuna tubes plus loads more she is the ultimate trailer charter boat.

The first week on her saw some phenomenal fish hit the decks, pictured above Tony McKenzie was the first customer to put a fish aboard, a nice Hapuka caught on a 500gm Broken Arrow jig in Blue.

Craig Brown (Brownie) nailed the first kingfish - a whopping 28kg kingfish a great start!  Tony followed up with another fat fish which also went 28kg!

The Navnet was showing huge fish on the sounder on a big SST break.  The following day the big fish kept biting and Zayne Short got absolutely RAILED by a horse of a fish that wasted his rod, 40 minutes later we topped 30kg on just the second day.

Big snapper and big kingfish were all chomping down on loads of bait evident on the sounder and regurgitating them when they came up boatside, there was an almighty feast going on underwater thanks to to very nice blue water that got pushed in last week.

You can see loads more pics of big fish from the first week diary aboard the new Senator here

Mrs Epic even managed to sneak out on the new rig as well, Belinda showing she can muscle the fish, with one going close to half her own weight!  She gave the new rig a big thumbs up too!

We're stoked with the new rig, a huge thanks to Senator, ENL (Furuno), Yahama, Kevin Harvey Marine and Paeroa Marine for your help putting her together!

> Fishing Report 7 Feb 2011

The kingfish are still biting hard and Tobez on Sanity reports some hot action on livies over the last week.

Pictured here is Alan Williams, a regular with a very nice 20k + kingfish caught from the Aldermens this week.

Check the full report from a couple of weeks kingi action on Sanity here

> Fishing Report 2 Feb 2011

Another striped marlin, this time on Sanity a nice fish at 101 kg, and this time targeting kingfish with livebaits, and hello a striped marlin popped its head up and put up an awesome fight on the Stella 20000 with the fish close to the boat for most of the fight, and tag team effort between two anglers with no luxury of a harness on jigging gear!  Well done to Scott Fountain and Ryan Blow the anglers.

Just goes to show once again that the jigging gear is well up to fighting all sorts of pelagic monsters.

Tobes has a full report of an epic day on the water here a day none of the team on board will ever forget.

The water has warmed up and with a mean current pushing in around the Aldermen Islands it is all on for both big kingfish and marlin too. 

The two days surrounding this capture saw loads of boats hooking marlin in the vicinity of the Aldermen Pins thanks to this good water and loads of baitfish present.

With such good fishing the hot fishing months of March and April should be on fire!

> Fishing Report 28 Jan 2010

We had our first full day game trip for the season on 'Epic' today and went 1-1-1 landing our first striped marlin of the season in the first hour. 

Skirmantas has been fishing with us for a couple of years and Phil from Scotland had been out with me the earlier week, so both were hoping to nail a marlin for something different. It was a bit of a change blasting out without catching livebait at all and leaving the kingfish alone for the morning!  We crossed the Tairua bar which was a bit gnarly but crossable and headed up the The Hook off Red Merc which is where all the action had been and set the lures. 

We'd gone an hour before the shotgun rigger popped off, we all turned around in anticipation and at first thoughts we thought it might have been a mahimahi or albacore as the line did not peel to fast, then a fairly fat marlin poked its shoulders out of the water and jumped for the sky....ZZZZzzzzzzzzz the line peeled and we were on, organised carnage pursued and we cleared the gear and got line back with the fish short near the boat for about 20 minutes and a great sight for the guys as it put up a dogged fight near the boat.

We decided to keep the fish as it is the first of the season and it drew a nice crowd when we dropped it off at Whitianga for a weigh and smoke before steaming back to Tairua. The lure was a Bonze Apache in Evil colours - another of New Zealand lure maker Bonze's great lures. The Marlin have arrived folks!  It was nice to get one last one in the old girl before the new boat goes in the water this week!

> Fishing Report 25 Jan 2010

We've been lucky to have the guru of top water lure fishing Konishi San from Carpenter in Japan visit us in Tairua to chase some kingfish on his awesome stickbaits.  Konishi was doing a road trip through NZ with the boys from YeeHaa fishing tackle. Pictured here is a 23kg kingfish we picked up on stickbait fishing in close to the Aldermen Islands over some shallow foul on a Carpenter Gamma stickbait.  The boys also picked up a nice line of fish fishing the Tairua coast on a few of our Spot X's!!!

> Fishing Report 20 Jan 2010

There are a whole pile of photos from about three weeks of Christmas and New Year action on Epic.

It was a great summer with awesome weather and plenty of kingfish playing ball, most days saw a few mid 20kg kingfish landed amongst kingfish of all shapes and sizes.

Livies over this time of year are always the ticket to some solid action and this season was no exception.

Stickbaits and poppers in the shallows while we are catching livebait have been nailing some awesome fish and its always a spectacular way to start the day with kingfish chasing stickbaits to the boat!

Our new MC Works rod from Japan and JM PE8 reel combo has been well and truly tested on some big fish out deep on livebaits and is proving to be a dragon slayer with no reefings so far!

We've released a whole heap of big fish out there amongst the 50 or so a day we've been released over the last few weeks so they are still out there for someone else to catch!

Amongst the action has been some big snapper hitting livebaits.

We have a whole page of awesome shots from the wicked day trips we had over the summer period up here

Pictured opposite are some of the goodies, and pretty indicative of the fishing to be had over the Xmas and New Year period this year.

If you want to get amongst it next Xmas book now.....

> Fishing Report 17 Jan 2010

What an awesome summer we are having.

The conditions each day have been nothing short of superb.

We've got a page of pics from the day fishing trips over the summer time on Sanity loaded up here

Pretty much all the action came from the Aldermen Pins which was just loaded with bait and kingfish in all sizes over the Xmas period.

Young fella Leith picked up the biggest snapper for the period, a great effort for the young fellas after braving some sea sickness during the day but seeing the day out and nailing this at the end of the day!  It went the magic 9.5kg on the scales - 20 pound for his very first snapper!!

Each day has seen some whopping kings amongst the 50 fish days, with most kingfish released to fight another day.

The water has warmed up to 20-21 degrees and so the afternoons have been spent trolling a few lures to wrap the day up, plenty of albacore and skippes the result, plus Tobes has raised a couple of Blues that haven't sutck yet but it won't be long before one hits the gantry.

The top water action has been good with fish in the shallows taking poppers and stickbaits and some days we've had some shots on the stickbaits and poppers out in the deep too.  When the kings come up high on the sounder its time to get the top water gear out!

TWL have put a FinNor Marquesa on the boat and that has accounted for plenty of big kingfish over the last few weeks, it is proving to be a great reel for livebaiting and jigging kingfish.

Want some dates for this time next year on Sanity?  Well ya better book them now!!

> Fishing Report 14 Jan 2010

Drew has been watching our site since his mates fished with us in Tairua 3 years ago.  It was time to do it! Bringing two mates Curtis and Luke for a Kiwi fishing adventure, they were rewarded with stacks of kingfish on poppers, livies and jigs.  Tobes guided the trip on Epic and we also teed up a 4th day out with spearo Rick Turner & the guys nabbed some crays freediving and one of the crew shot a 21kg king and a nice snapper. Check Toby's report of the trip here

> Fishing Report 16 Dec 2010

Its been a fun couple of weeks of fishing with the fish very spread out and everything from salt water fly, to stickbaits, poppers, surface trolled livebaits, jigs and softbaits producing some great kingi fishing.

The water is warm and blue, and with saurie, skippes and plenty of bait and birds around it will not be long before the first marlin and game fish of the season are caught.

The top 20m of the water column has been loaded with bait and most of our kingfish have been caught on or near the surface.

Pictured here is Mark Jospeh with a very solid king on light casting gear and a Smiths stick bait from the Aldermen Islands, and also a nice king on Salt wayer fly from Cuvier.

For more pics from the last few weeks on Epic and the change of the season check the full report here

> Fishing Report 15 Dec 2010

Tobes has been busy on Sanity with a big run of day trips, the last two weeks started with some great mid water livebaiting action for kingfish, chasing kingfish on jigs on the myriad of closer pins around the Mercs and Cuvier and finished with some fun on poppers at the Aldermen Islands.

Check his report from the last couple of weeks here

> Fishing Report 30 Nov 2010

A great way to wrap November up, Aaron Ho and mates did a day trip on Sanity and got the boat a new heaviest weighed kingfish at 32kg.

It was an awesome day of livebaitings with big fish hitting baits and a number of new personal best kingfish for the crew.

Check the full report here

> Fishing Report 29 Nov 2010

Another choice weekend of fishing, with plenty of kingfish and snapper to keep the rods bent.

Darryl and Choong pictured here in perfect conditions and the fish played ball with the guys returning to port with very sore arms.

Once again green and gold jigs, the Katch1 spear accounting for the biggest, were the go to jig, and livebaits accounted for a fair share as well.

I even managed to save a spot for my father who came out and got seriously railed on a few very nice fish as well. Good to see him get a few last fish in this boat before its replaced with the new Senator next month.

For more pics check the full report here

> Fishing Report 26 Nov 2010

We've just finished a corporate fishing trip with the boys from the BNZ with two teams split between our two boats, team leaders Mark and Chalky here pictured with some of the awesome kingfish we caught during the day into the mid to late 20k's.

Livebaits or green and hold jigs were the ticket to hooking into the green and gold machines and there were some serious railings throughout the day.

Livies and dead mackeral also accounted for a nice line of snappers which we had cooked up for the crew that night as some of the fishing tales were recounted.

For more pics and the full report click here

> Fishing Report 25 Nov 2010

It feels like we are going to be in for a stunning summer of fishing out of Tairua and Whitianga if the conditions this week have been anything to go by.

This week we had Jack Harper from Byron Bay back staying with us in Tairua, Jacks first trip with us was four years ago in our very first boat, and since then him and his wife Yvonne have booked to return every year for a taste of Coromandel life, scrummy seafood and some epic fishing action on the water.

We got into a real nice line of snapper every day hitting live baits caught in the morning, and Jack put his reconstructed shoulder to work on some hard fighting Tairua kingfish as well. 

Regular epic fisho Simon Skelton joined Jack on one of the days and was rewarded with some nice kingfish on jigs, livies and stickbaits, the one caught above taken on a Sebele stickbait caught on light casting tackle, an epic fight on 6kg braid!

The shallow water around Tairua also saw some tasty morsels collected, scallops from 8m of water and crays from shallower, not to mention some summer kingfish showing up around the bait grounds close to Tairua and a nice line of John Dory taken every morning while we were stocking the tanks.

All in all we ate pretty well this week....for more piccies check the full report

> Fishing Report 20 Nov 2010

It has been a pretty special week at the Aldermen Islands out of Tairua this week, good crews on Epic with different day trips every day getting to some quality fishing action.

Fish of the week on Epic was this monster 33kg kingfish - a solid fish going 1.35m - to Andrew Foreman from Waiheke Island who came out on a Boulder trip with us to check out some of his rods and reels.  The kingfish took the biggest livie we had in the tank, it has been fair to say the kingfish have been proprtional to the size of the livebaits you've stuck down this week.

The snapper have well and truly played ball this week as well with Ian Du Plessis pictured here with a nice snapper taken on a livebait.

For more choice pics from the week on Epic check the full report here

> Fishing Report 18 Nov 2010

Tobez has had a couple of monster days on Sanity this week, livebaiting the Aldermen Islands. 

There has been a patch of XOS mackeral in the Bay which has made for a healthy livebait tank and you know what they say - big bait - big fish, that rang true and they accounted for some very nice 20-30kg kingfish from Deano (pic below) and Greg.

The following day saw a couple of big kings again to Gazza pictured opposite with a 30 kegger caught on the Jigstart spiral wrap.

All the snapper are out deep at present and a long line of big snapper caught on livebaits and softbaits this week was the result, like this nice 9kg fish to Peter.

The conditions have been just superb over the last week and the fishing out of Tairua and Whitianga has just been awesome.

The water temp has also spung up a good 2 degrees to be pushing 18 degrees so it isn't long before the marlin and tuna turn up.

Check out the full report here and if you like the look of this action then you know what to do, get in touch and book a trip!

> Fishing Report 14 Nov 2010

Peter Chan was back on Epic bringing out his good fishing mate Jun from Christchurch.  The two guys did a two dayer by themselves and it was good times and good fishing with the guys railed on plenty of kings in the teens up to 20kg hitting jigs, and plenty of snapper hitting jellybean sized livies as well. Check out more pics from their fishing trip here

> Fishing Report 12 Nov 2010

The good fishing out of Tairua and Whitianga continues. Tobez has just finished a two dayer with Andy and Bill from Australia, with some casual fishos coming along each day as well, and the fishing was good with kings in the mid to late teens, and this nice one opposite to Gareth round 20kg and some very nice snapper for the table each day as well.

Check the full report out here

> Fishing Report 10 Nov

The fishing has been pretty consistent the last few days with a hot afternoon bite in close to the Aldermen Islands the norm and loads of kings up very high in the water column smashing up baits and jigs.  Triples and quad hook ups round the 15kg mark have been the norm and the odd good early to mid 20kg kingfish like this one to Wayne Henson.

It has been good times with smooth seas and most days we've had Corporate or work groups of eight split between our two boats, and everyone having a ball.

Monday saw some big snapper hitting live and dead bait half way up the water column as well.

For a full report on the action from both boats, including trips for the boys from Datacom, Enzed, Nissan, ENL and Thomson Walker check the full report here

> Fishing Report 4 Nov 2010

This week we had the pleasure of having Sami Omari on board from Fishing World magazine in Australia.

Despite some pretty average conditions for the week we got into some good kingfish and some nice snapper too.

I managed to get the arms stretched myself on a new PB for myself round the 27-28kg mark,

Once again the pins held some nice big fish but the quanitity and hot bite was around the islands themselves.

Slipper Island in the lee of the big swell running produced the best snapper fishing.

We had a two dayer after he left and the first morning of that produced a 30 fish morning, for more from the week check the report here

> Fishing Report 31 Oct 2010

Mark Wakelin won a one day fishing charter out on Sanity and ended up having a ball on the some hard fighting kingfish to 25kg.

Livies were the order of the day producing the line share of the fish,

Mark has written a report up for us along with a few nice photos here

> Fishing Report 29 Oct 2010

The last week of October produced some simply insane action with countless kings over 20kg at the Aldermen Pins and the continual roar of Stellas howling.

At the start of the week jigs where producing good fish then most of the bite switched to baits.  The kings have all been scoffing squid and a whole squid rigged and drifted back amongst the livies has also been a good tactic and a bit of fun on the softbait gear.

Pictured here are a couple of nice fish from the week including a 27kg king caught by Luke Vazey and another nice fish in the mid 20's by the Rixon crew.

There is a full weeks worth of pics from on board Epic up here

> Fishing Report 26 Oct 2010

The hot October action continues. Father and son Rob and Juda have just finished a two day fishing charter with Tobez out of Whitianga on Sanity. There is no better father and son bonding than getting smashed by big kingfish and the boys got into some simply wicked kingi action.

Livies were the go-to weapon over the two days with a good stock holding under the dock at the start of the day and then it was out to the Aldie Pins where the fellas accounted for plenty of 20kg + kingfish caught and released and 8 year old Juda slayed plenty of monsters himself on his new 'rail rod'.

Check out the full report and photos of some pretty awesome Coromandel fishing action here

> Fishing Report 16 Oct 2010

Fishing on a four day trip on Epic

Anthony Dimech has knocked off two kingfish he won't be forgetting for a long time, if not a lifetime! Ant got a 36.5kg monster kingfish on the jig on Day one, on a Blue Broken Arrow on a JM350.  To top that off next drift he nabbed a 19kg kingfish on 6kg gear on a popper! 

The remaining days saw the rest of the boys also get into some awesome fishing too on both jigs and poppers.  Bash also topped the 30kg mark on a huge fish and Rob topped 20kg and we had some mind blowing boil ups and surface takes from big kingfish. It was a pretty insane few days on the water that none of us will forget, the boys have booked the same time next year!  See ya then!

Check out the full report and photos

> Fishing Report 15 Oct 2010

Father and son duo Geoff and Matt Saxon have just finished a two dayer with Tobes on Sanity, celebrating Geoff's 60th in style and accounted for a quality line of nice big kingfish into the mid twenty kilos.  The verdict from the boys, their best fishing trip ever!

Geoff and Matt are both pictured opposite with some of the better fish of the trip about to be released back in good condition.

The boys jigged hard on Day one with good results, then had a big day of livebaiting on day two when the arms needed a rest, the kings had other ideas though and gave them another solid workout!

Another awesome couple of days action at the Aldies.

Check the full report and pics here

> Fishing Report 10 Oct 2010

The boys from Rayglass boats and VolvoPenta booked a kingi trip on Epic several months ago, when the day finally came the weather gods played ball and the kingi fishing went off big time!

Some surface action saw us nailing a 17kg kingfish on a popper on a 6kg softbait set up, as well as 20kg kings hitting trolled livies on the surface in 100m!

Brett pictured here nailed the biggest of the day somewhere round the 28kg mark, in fact he nailed the two biggest fish of the day.

Plenty of other 15-21 kg fish were caught and released on jigs and livies through the day.

We've got the full report of another very special day on the Coromandel seas up here

> Fishing Report 10 Oct 2010

Gun Sydney jiggers Tim, Marinco, Greg and Jim were back over for a quick blast of NZ kingi mayhem.

The boys landed countless quality kingfish with one day at the Merc Pins and one day at the Aldy Pins.

Pictured here is Greg with a nice fat fish from the Aldies and the full report from two days on Sanity here from Capt Tobes

> Fishing Report 8 Oct 2010

The head is spinning now as the fishing gets even better, what a spring! 

Four guys who had not done a lot of fishing come out with us for a week long trip and absolutely brain it!

Snapper to 9kg, all the boys cracked 20Kg's on the kingfish on jigs, with doubles of monster fish the norm at the Aldies. 

John topped the 30kg mark with a huge fish and if that wasn't enough the boys went hard and topped .........

100 KINGFISH IN A DAY.!!!!

The bigger fish were caught at the Aldies with fish hell bent on smashing jigs up hard high in the water column, but the last day for the numbers we blasted up to the Mercs from Tairua and the bait and numbers of kingfish up there were unbelieveable.

For the full report check out the mammoth report and all the pics here

The fellas will be back in Oct 2011 but it is going to be hard to top....

> Fishing Report 6 Oct 2010

Regular Epic Adventurer Tom Duffy was back for some more Aldies magic this time bringing a crew of mates including well known Sydney fishing identity Otto.

The fellas got into some awesome quality fish with the first day seeing one of the most amazing bites at the Aldies for some time, with pack attacks of 20kg kingfish the norm.

The boys also played with the silly string and there were some monumental bustoffs, but also some very impressive captures of 20kg kings on 15kg braid.

When the arms got a bit tied a good quality of snapper were waiting in the deep and the crew ate very well at nights on the spoils.

Check out the full report and piccies from Capt Tobes on Sanity here

> Fishing Report 1 Oct 2010

We've just finished up what could quite possible be our most Epic Adventures yet! 

12 guys from all around the globe on their 17th annual fishing trip, fishing with us for a week! The verdict from the guys, their best trip ever ever!

Literally hundreds of kingfish were caught and released over the week, the Mercury Pins accounting for huge numbers of quality kingfish on jigs, with 50-60 fish days on Sanity the norm up there.

The Aldies turned it on on the big fish front with 30kg the biggest, and numerous early and mid twenty kilo fish. 

The biggest fish came on a Blue Broken Arrow, Blue and Pink rockets also very hot.

Pictured opposite is Rich with a 26kg kingfish from a 61 fish day on Sanity, Cam with a nice puka on the jig, and JP with his 30kg on the last day at the Aldies on Epic.

Some of the lads had some epic light tackle action too with Kenny getting an 11kg on 3kg mono in the Mercury Bay bait schools.

Check out the full report from the MILF trip here

> Fishing Report 19 Sept 2010

Another great week out of Whitianga, with awesome runs of jig caught kingfish at the Mercury Pins. 

Fish of all sizes hitting jigs and jigging days of 20-40 kingfish released the norm. 

Hot jigs are the River to Sea spike and Jigging Master rockets.

Some great snapper are being caught on both the deeper reefs around the Mercs and the islands themselves.

Father and son team Ian and Richard Kitchingman from Thames are pictured here with a nice combo of jig caught kingfish and a primo straylined snapper caught this week at the Mercury Pins and Red Merc.

For more details of some great fishing out of Whitianga click here for the full report

> Fishing Report 14 Sept 2010

Another choice week out of Taiura with some good teen sized kingfish hitting jigs, the new style Blue Broken Arrow in particular a very hot jig for us at the Aldies at the moment and the JM green and gold rocket producing too.

Mick Johnson proved he is the ultimate fish magnet yet again last year he managed to time four of his day trips with some of the hottest bites of the year, together with his mate Anthony he was in the right place again for another hot morning session with one FAT fish after another today, Anthony nailed two round 20kg and another somewhere round the 28kg mark, which he's battling to hold up here, the girth on it was something else.   All the big fish were tagged and released as they were all roed or milted up. For more read the weekly report here

> Fishing Report 3 Sept 2010

Ozzies Ken, Geoff, and Rob have just finished an epic five day New Zealand charter, and booking plenty of days paid off big time with some awesome fish hitting the decks.

The Tairua kingfish played ball with two fish around the 30kg mark tagged and released, several above 20kg tagged and plenty more quality fish in the teens to keep the arms stretched.  Livies did the damage on the bigger fish once again, with the jigging producing good numbers of fish as well.

Some quality snapper to 6kg were also caught meaning the guys had ample servings of nice New Zealand seafood to eat during their stay.  Pillies straylined out at the Aldermen Islands producing the snapper fishing results.

This quality fishing is a signal that spring is here and here is hoping a repeat of the run of kingfish in the 30kg mark we had last spring.

Our gear was well and truly tested to the max on several occasions, the JM 350 was well and truly stretched with the PE7 reel on sunset on Rob's fish!  Just check out some of the photos on the full report

Pictured opposite is Rob with a 30 kegger (top), Geoff with a 6kg snapper (middle) and Ken with a kingfish in the late 20kg's.  Ken also managed to blood his Stella 5000 and GLoomis on a 15kg king in the shallows!

> Fishing Report 25 Aug 2010

Four keen as Aussies have just finished doing battle with plenty of New Zealand kingfish and are well shattered, big kingfish smashing livebaits the first two days, then two days of solid action on the jigs.

With kingfish following caught fish to the surface and milted up fish leaving their mark on anglers (!) is this he sign that spring fishing is well and truly here?  I think we're in for a good season ahead.

The JM rockets were the star performers and our new JM Powerspell reels are proving awesome jigging reels.

It was great to have the guys with us in Tairua and we tucked into some nice seafood while they were here. Check the full report out here

> Fishing Report 22 Aug 2010

A great week of fishing with fat kingfish spread from the coast to the deep, eating both livies and jigs.We've had kingfish in the deep smashing jigs right under the boat, a sign that a change in season might be here. There have also been some fat, big snapper showing up in the deep, like this 8kg model caught with us on a day charter out of Tairua on Sunday by Graeme Cox, on one of our lovely new Daiwa Certate reels. Fore more pics click here

> Fishing Report 12 Aug 2010

The inshore fishing is on fire with loads of bait in close and plenty of big kingfish and snapper stalking the bait schools.  We've had fish around the 20kg mark taken on jigs, livies, poppers and even bait flies along the Tairua and Pauanui coastline.

The Greerton firefighters had a blast with Tobes on Thursday check the full report here and there is another page full of epic kingi action here as well

> Fishing Report 6 August 2010

We've got some serious winter fishing happening at the moment and nearly every day we are seeing big fat kingfish over 20kg's.   Most of the fish have been caught out wide though we've had some solid fishing in close as well including a recaught tagged kingfish we tagged four months ago at the pins turning up inshore, check out more pics and the full run down here

> Fishing Report 24 July 2010

What a week of awesome jigging out of Tairua.  Highlight of the fishing week was father and son Royce and Travis visiting us with Australian TV show Marg Bergs Fishing Addiction, and seeing them do real well on the kingfish.  Every day saw people getting their first ever kingfish, for more check the report and photos out here

> Fishing Report 19 July 2010

The reefs out of Great Merc have been jigging well with plenty of nice sized kingfish. 

Most of the reefs around the Mercs are holding some nice snapper as well, Tim and son Ben got stuck into some nice snapper on a recent trip when the conditions meant getting out to chase the kingfish was not an option.  Fresh mackeral baits were the order of the day.  Check the kingi and snapper photos from the last week on Sanity here

> Fishing Report 7 July 2010

Whitianga is holding some awesome kingfish in the shallows at the moment with big schools of mackeral out on the sand in the bay minutes from port.  We've been able to target them on very light softbait gear because of the terrain - meaning some awesome fights have ensued.  After some great shallow water action each day the reefs out the back of the Mercs have produced top fish as well on jigs and livies. Check the full report here

> Fishing Report 4 July 2010

We've just finished an awesome three day fishing trip with keen jiggers Mike, Hayley, Pete and Peter, their fourth trip back to fish New Zealand with us in a year.

On Friday we left Tairua to fish Mayor Island with an awesome afternoon bite on Mayor kingfish smashing up jigs, stickbaits and livebaits, Hayley nailing the fish of the day at 20kg.

Saturday we fished Whitianga and Cuvier with Hayley again nailing the kingfish of the day in the shallows on 4kg braid and Mike loaded up on an awesome haul of crayfish at Cuvier Island, plus a good feed of snapper off Opito Bay - we ate well that night! 

Sunday we were back at the Aldermen Pins and Hayley knocked over the fish of the day again, a 20kg kingfish on her JM 250 Freejigger and JM Rocket jig.

It was an awesome three days fishing the wide range of mind blowing kingfish terrain we have in a close proximity to our Eastern Coromandel fishing base.

For the full report click here

> Fishing Report 25 June 2010

We had two days of superb conditions this week and both boats got into some awesome Coromandel fishing action mid week.

One of the highlights was a big kingfish smashing a livebaited squid in the shallows at the Aldies in Shark Alley.  There were some hot bites on the kingfish out wide too.

Roger joined a regular bunch of lads we have out and not only caught his first kingfish he managed to snaffle this 8kg snapper fishing in 90m of water east of the Aldies, on a fresh cut mackeral bait.

Ian Miller from Extreme Boats looks pretty chuffed with this kingfish caught from a hot evening bite in glassy conditions at 'the Pins'

Check the full report here

> Fishing Report 21 June 2010

The last week we've seen some big Coromandel kingfish hitting the decks! 

Cantabrians Ken and John joined us for a three day fishing charter out of Tairua and John came away with a new 25kg kingfish as a personal best.  John is pictured opposite and a full report of three awesome days fishing and lots more photos of kings in the 18-25kg range caught on jigs and livies are up here.

Up in Whitianga we've been getting in to  some awesome kingi action in close in the Mercury Bay and around Great Mercury Island, plus some interesting kingi recaptures out wide - Scott Godden pictured opposite with a kingi we originally tagged on Epic back in 2008 check out Tobes weekly gallery for more here

For the snapper snooper there are some monster snapper moving in at the moment, a good option its too windy to get out wide on the big kings.

> Fishing Report 7 June 2010

We've had two awesome weeks of fishing out of Tairua and Whitianga, in between some average weather the weather windows have seen plenty of big NZ kingfish feasting up large.  There have been plenty of good bites on jigs, with livebaits still performing well and the shallows of Mercury Bay have been firing with plenty of bait balls holding some good sized kingfish.  The snapper are well and truly stacked up in the shallows and also feasting up large and this is the perfect time to stalk some monster snapper in the shallows. 10 year old Jacob Coldicutt is pictured here with a monster kingfish caught on a livebait at th Alderman Islands out from Tairua, an awesome effort for the young fella.  Derek Chow is also pictured here fighting a kingfish just minutes from the Whitianga boat ramp. For more pics from the last few weeks check ou a more detailed report and gallery here

> Fishing Report 22 May 2010

The Tairua and Whitianga reefs are packed with bait at the moment and with the kingfish feasting up big time the livebaits are not lasting long at all. There have been some very nice kingfish hitting the decks of both boats over the last couple of weeks. 

We've had the honour of hosting the head engineers from Japan who build Daiwa jigging reels.

On their first day fishing from Tairua they had a blinder with over 50 kingfish caught on jigs. Pictured opposite is on of the engineers loaded up on one of the new look Daiwa rods.

Also pictured here is Mark Reese with a 22kg kingfish caught on a day fishing charter on Sanity last week at the Aldies.

For more action from the last few weeks check out the following gallery and report here

> Fishing Report 6 May 2010

She's used to big fish holding a NZ Bluefin record but today she went toe to toe with a huge Aldies kingi!

Capt Tobes put Wilma Robinson from Te Aroha on to a 30.6kg kingfish today and she did an awesome job of getting this beast of a fish to the boat.

It was caught on a livebait wide of the Aldermen Islands.

Yep, Thursday 6 May saw an awesome patch of fish biting out wide, not just big kingfish but there was a nice line of snapper caught during an awesome day of fishing aboard our Whitianga vessel Sanity.  She ended up getting 1st kingfish and 3rd snapper in her local Te Aroha fishing club competition!

For more photos and a full report from the day check out Tobes report here

> Fishing Report 2 May 2010

We've just had nine anglers from Sydney over fishing from both of our boats.

We hit an awesome patch of BIG kingfish with a dozen of the fish going 20-28kg. With plenty of bait and good water around we also had a striped marlin feeding beside the boat. 

Paul Justin who led the trip over is pictured here with his FAT 28kg fish, and we have more pics and detailed report from a 'smashing' trip here

> Fishing Report 25 May 2010

The BCF Team were back in Tairua this week for some more NZ kingfish action!

We caught kingfish on jigs, poppers, softbait and livebait in a wide range of spots - the Corner Dairy, G Spot, Par Five and Supermarket all firing up, each requiring a different approach.

Sarah stole the show with the best fish of the trip, pictured here with a 20kg fish taken from the G Spot on the last afternoon and also a nice fish she got on a popper and 8pd braid!

You can check out more action and the best fishing photos from their 3 day charter here

> Fishing Report 17 April 2010

We're rapt to announce we now have two boats in the water! 

We've just added a new 8m pontoon boat, Sanity to our fleet.

Over the last four days we've had some awesome kingi jigging action, with a big group of clients split between our two boats. 

Andrew Cox the Australian agent for Jigging Master brought over some good clients and they had a ball testing out their JM rods an reels to the max on some big New Zealand Kingfish!

It was the perfect opportunity to work the two boats side by side, with both boats getting stuck into some big fat fish.

Hot jigs varied over the days with green and gold being most consistent, blue and silver the next most productive jig, with Rockets and Alien jigs working real well. 

When the jigs have gone off the bite, live mackeral have switched the bite back on, and the boys aboard Sanity had a blinder on livebaits on day three of the trip.

It was an awesome two days of action with a great bunch of guys we hope to see back on the Coromandel again soon.

To see a complete gallery, photos and report on the trip click here

> Fishing Report 12 April 2010

What an awesome few weeks of fishing!!  We've had a great run of kingfish inshore with plenty of big bait schools of mackeral and pilchards in the shallows. The big snapper have been turning up in the shallows around Slipper Island too like the one Bill Woods is about to release opposite. Caught on the old favourite Nuclear Chicken of course!!

The jigging has been off the planet at times and a highlight for the last week was Capt Tobes having his first day at the helm of Epic. Tobes had a great first day as our new guide with a great run of big kingfish to 19kg.

Mitch Bruorton here holds an example of some of the fat kingfish that are smashing jigs at the moment. Hot jigs are the JM Rocket in Blue or Pink, JM Alien in Green and Gold, River to Sea Green and Gold spike.

Having see day in day out what awesome pieces of equipment Jigging Master rods are, it was an honour to have Pony Liu, the mad behind the worlds top jigging rod and the brand Jigging Master on board Epic Adventures filming a new jigging DVD.  

Pony is pictured opposite with one of the nice kingfish he caught on a new light jig rod in the 150-200gm range. The Jigging Master boys caught about 40 kingfish in the one day they had with us - the pressure was on and we were lucky that several pins from the Aldies to Slipper produced the goods, we even picked up a treble of fish on jigs in 10m on the way home.

Another highlight of the last few weeks include a few young fellas getting some awesome big kingfish, including 12 year old Tairua lad Shaun Cawley pictured opposite with a fat 16kg fish.

Check out more photos including some awesome action on the light JM rods here

> Fishing Report 27 March 2010

The Alderman kingfish are on fire!  So is the inshore kingfish fishing! 

We've just finished three days with repeat Singapore fishermen Kim, John, Chuan and Stanley and the boys caught kingfish on poppers, salt water fly, softbaits and jigs. No livebaits for these purist lure fishermen!

The top water fishing inshore was superb with awesome visual strikes on the surface from kingfish on poppers and softbaits, and Kim nailed a nice first kingfish on salt water fly.  The schools of mackeral inshore and holding some good numbers of kingfish around close to Tairua and Pauanui.

The boys showed their form on the jigging front with around 70 tagged kingfish on jigs.

Hot jigs were the Blue Spike from River to Sea, Seven Seas jigs, and trusty Boken Arrow and Katch 1 in green and gold. JM Rocket in Green and Gold also firing.

Top water lure that was best was a Surecatch popper in grey and black with spots....mid water lure best in the shallows was a New Penny 7" Gulp.

We still had the odd shark encountered as you can tell from Stanley's munched shark. The odd fish around 21kg was landed, most were fat fish in the 12-14kg range..

The boys also had a good bycatch of other species including snapper and trevally, interestingly therese were mainly hitting the smaller jigs the guys were using.

Over the three days there was no set bite time with a wide open bite during the day.

Kim and the boys will be back in October for another crack at some big fat NZ kingfish!

Check out more photos from their trip on their photo gallery that we have loaded up here

> Fishing Report 20 March 2010

We've got plenty of options on the kingi front at the moment with both the inshore and offshore kingfish grounds firing on all cylinders with big, fat, solid kingfish.

Aussie's Gary, Les, Brett and Allan can be thanked for helping one of our better spots fire up, after they spent 7 hours fighting an estimated 400kg Mako Shark (on a Stella and Jigging Master rod) who had been spooking the grounds and eating most of the fish we hooked whole!  After dragging him way away from the reef the fishing has improved no end!!!

The guys had four awesome days with us, that included a wild morning session livebaiting 20 kingfish from a bait ball in 10m of water, and then an endless string of snapper and kingfish from the deep on their last day.  Check out the full report here including our epic encounter with the hugest beast we've ever seen, let alone fight on a jig rod!!

In the shallows fresh live jack mackeral are proving irresistable, while out wide, Jigging Master rocket jigs, Action Jigs and Borken Arrows have been hot for us.  The new Berkley Deep water softbait rigs have been slaying the snapper too!

> Fishing Report 6 March 2010

MARLIN ON A JIG ROD!!!

Mike and Hayley Bonnici from Australia were back for their third trip with us, and 3 March will be a day we won't forget for a long time! 

After tagging and releasing several big kingfish in the morning, we tried to catch a marlin on a jig rod, and had a striped marlin on within 10 minutes....Mike was on the Jigging Master rod and Jigging Master reel and did an awesome job and we got it to the boat in 20 minutes, after an amazing show and awesome fight, within metres of the boat for most of the time.

Then we successfully softbaited some very nice snapper on plastics in at the Aldermen Islands, and finished the day off with more kingfish on the jigs.

February and March are great times of the year to mix up softbaiting, gamefishing and jigging - normally it takes a few days to get this sort of action but Mike and Hayley are such fishy buggers we managed to squeeze it all into one epic day!

There are stacks of snapper coming back on to the reefs at the moment so the softbaiting is back on big time!

Picking and area where the snapper are holding into the current and working a softbait in front of the them is one of the most productive ways to catch them, and Mike and Hayley found New Penny baits working the best.

We've loaded up more photos of Mike and Hayley's day with us here

Day Two saw us tag and release 24 kingfish on one day, between three anglers.

> Fishing Report 28 Feb2010

The last week of February every year sees us competing in the New Zealand Nationals. For me it is a chance to have a week off - to go.....fishing!

Our team of Anthony Honeybone, Brad Burden, John Pellew, Gen Sato, Dion Wills and Glen Van Hellemond took out top Tairua boat on points, first Billfish in the 15kg line class, 3rd Billfish overall on points. 

We had a great week chasing everything from kingis, to marlin, snapper, albacore, mahimahi and kahawai, all on light tackle.

The highlight for us was this Blue Marlin which was a team effort for Ants, Sato, and myself who were fishing that day.  It stands as a new club record for Tairua on 15kg.

We've got a photo gallery from this years New Zealand Fishing Nationals and brief report up here

> Fishing Report 19 Feb 2010

We've loaded up a whole page of photos from the last three weeks here.

It has been a pretty insane few weeks with a better run of summer kingis than usual, and plenty of fish in the 18-25kg range.

We've loaded a couple of highlights opposite, first up Grant Knuckey with a primo kingi caught first thing in the morning in the shallows from a double strike.

Jeremy from Australia caught the snapper opposite on a livebait and the snapper have well and truly moved into most of their regular haunts on the reefs, ledges and dropoffs.

The next month will see some huge snapper move into the reefs as they start to spread back out from their spawning grounds.

We've had some amazing bites on the jigs as well, and when the kingis have been balling up bait on the outer reefs some of the bites have been insane.

Thorsten Traut spent seven days with us and nailed plenty of kings, finishing with a 25kg model that had out JM 400 bent down the side the of the boat - his Expedition was at full drag the king was not getting away!

And some of the closer pins have produced some solid fish on jigs as well, a shallow reef right inside the Aldies group produced this 21kg kingfish last Saturday.  An awesome effort for a first time jig fishermen!

Anyway, check out the photos from the last week few week there is plenty more where these came from!!

The water has warmed right up to 22 degrees out wide and we'll see fishing typical of mid February through early March this year as the season seems to be running a lot later this year.

> Fishing Report 8 Feb 2010

What an amazing couple of weeks - there has been no time to put our usual photos up for a while! Marlin going bananas, big kingis going crazy....!!  Finally the kingis are nailing the jigs left right and centre and we've had some awesome bites of fish to 25kg. We've had plenty of marlin up for the few hours we've put in (too busy with the kingis!), including a monster of a blue last week that won its freedom.

We had a blinder today with four guests from Australia, we pulled up for a jigging session and gave the guys a run down on how it is done, then Jeremy spots a marlin smashing up bait fish (saurie) beside us, we pulled out two Tiagras, ran the lures in front of his nose, 30 seconds in to trolling with only two lures set on the corners and he smashes a Lumo Grand Slammer in on the short corner, 20 minues later Shane Udy the angler had a stripey boatside the gave one last aerial show jumping beside the boat, and he was then hauled in. The guys then settled in for some awesome jigging with kings to 18kg. A day none of us will forget for a while with bent rods and screaming reels the whole day and no waiting in between!

There are loads of other photos from the last few weeks to load up keep an eye out in the next few days for a new gallery for the last three weeks, including a 1st and 2nd Kingfish in the Tairua Pauanui Shimano Standup comp to Carl Sanders Edwards, in the meantime there are a few more marlin to be caught.....

> Fishing Report 15 Jan 2010

The last week we've predominantly been livebaiting, and we've had some awesome captures with kingis to 28kg.

Pictured here is Australian Bryan Hackett who had an awesome day on the water catching this 28kg kingfish, and Sally Gamble, a wee lady who tustled with a 25kg kingi and won the battle! 

Both of these fish were caught on our Jigging Master 350 and Shimano Talica 12ii which is proving to be a very versatile reel for both jigging and livebaiting.  Sally sure appreciated the lower gear near the end of the fight!

We're still jigging each day and you'll see in our weekly report and gallery that there have been days when the kings have been smashing the jigs up as well.  Being prepared with a range of techniques has produced kingis every day.

> Fishing Report 4 Jan 2010

Happy New Year to all around the world!  We've had a great summer so far with plenty of epic captures, great weather and plenty of seafood on the Christmas plate!  Livvie Wallace rebooked with us straight after her last Christmas/New Years trip and once again knocked over some great kingis on our Stella 2000SW and Jigging Master 400!  For more photos of our great holiday period check out the Xmas gallery

> Fishing Report 20 Dec 2009

We've just come off three awesome days fishing, with salt water fly fisherman Mark Joseph joining us to chase kingfish, snapper, trevally and kawahai on the fly.

It was an awesome time to come with the ocean alive with bait, workups and heaps of fish taking the fly!

Mark also did some jigging and his best kingfish for the trip weighed at 25kg, measuring 1.4m before being released. 

Pictured here is Mark's best jig caught kingfish and a nice snapper on the fly, check out more photos of kings caught on the fly as well as load of other photos from the trip here

> Fishing Report 14 Dec 2009

The last week has seen some awesome kingfish action, again the kingis spread out amongst most reefs feasting on squid in the deep, or mackeral in close.  The ladies dominated the big fish action last week, Angela Williams pictured here with a horse of a fish taken on our Stella 20000SW and JM400 rod - great effort Ange! Despite the photo she is pretty stoked!!

More photos from that trip and the other seven days of kingi action click here

> Fishing Report 4 Dec 2009

Summer is here, and fishing has very much hit summer mode, with the kingis now inshore and we saw an amazing sight yesterday with an ink covered ocean and kingis smashing up squid on the surface at Slipper Island - awesome!  After a week where the average fish size has been down, out of the blue comes this WHALE of a kingfish of 32kg, caught by Brad Burden on Monday - awesome mate!!

For more photos and reports from the last two weeks click here

> Fishing Report Sat 21 Nov

The fourth month in a row we've had kingis over 30kg - the great run continued today with a monster kingfish today from a double hook up.  Ryan Hutchings and mates were out with us for their first ever jigging trip and James hooked into this monster tipping the scales over 30kg, caught on a 300gm jig. Awesome stuff guys!  For more photos from the last week and some great snapper fishing too check out our gallery from the last week

> Fishing Report Mon 16 Nov

The weekend saw some awesome kingfish jigging, with a wide open bite through the day, especially early afternoon. Pictured here is Graham 'Boulder' McKenzie with a 20kg+ kingfish (released) caught on a custom painted Broken Arrow jig.  Action slider jigs were also very productive over the weekend. For more photos from two days of hot action check the weekends gallery

> Fishing Report Thurs 12 Nov

Local 11 year old Tairua lad Karl Atwell was out with us today and caught a snapper and kingfish most adults with give their front teeth for!!

His kingi was a monster caught on a 200gm jig and 100 weight rod and the snapper was caught on a Vader Gulp softbait.

The spring snapper at the moment are in awesome condition and hard fighting, Carl's snapper put up an great fight of around 15 minutes.

The snapper we are targetting are spring snapper mainly feeding on baitfish and can be caught in the deep or right up in the shallows where they are stalking mackeral and other baitfish.

For more photos from recent one day charters over the last week check out last weeks gallery

> Fishing Report 8 Nov 2009

We've just finished a four day New Zealand fishing charter for Australian's Bill, Hank and Andrew. They had a ball with kingis high up in the water column smashing up bait, taking jigs and livies and plenty of spring snapper on softbaits too.

Check out Hanks and crew's photos gallery here

> Fishing Report 1 Nov 2009

What a week!  We've just finished a long run of 1 day fishing charters and great weather over Labour Weekend and the week that followed. 

If you want to know what Tairua is like when the fishing really goes off, the check out this photo gallery from the last week!

We had quadruple hook ups right through the day on jigs, livies getting hammered by big kingfish and snapper and finished the week of with a tasty hapuku on some dead bait.

Photos opposite are Michael Loyim and Brendon Deacon, both from the same trip, both with 20kg kings caught on jigs.  Check out last weeks gallery of our best shots of the week for some more action.

> Fishing Report 23 Oct 2009

Light tackle enthusiasts Marcus Dean and Devlin Hill spent the day with us chasing a few records on 3kg. 

The kingfish had the better of us on 3 kilo but Devlin nailed a HUGE kingfish on 15kg mono.

The kingi went 35.65 kilo's - a good old fashioned 80 pounds, and took around 45 minutes to land - an awesome effort to keep a huge fish like this out of the reef on light gear.

The kingi hit a whole pillie as it was wound back into the boat!

We'd been drifting livebaits around for most of the day catching 10-15kg fish and were nearly going to call it quits when the big one hit!

Devlin also nailed some nice snapper during the fishing charter including this beautiful 22 pound snapper, taken on a livebait.

A nice line of snapper, including some to Marcus on 3kg came to the boat.

We've loaded a few more photos from their day out with us up here

Turning out to be a pretty awesome year of fishing for us in 2009!

> Fishing Report 22 Oct 2009

We've got classic spring fishing at the moment, with quality snapper fishing both in the deep and shallows and some awesome kingfish action. Pictured here is Wayne Henson with a nice 6kg snapper which hammered a live slimey mackeral in the deep, Wayne's work colleagues dealt to plenty of hard fighting Tairua kingfish during the day as well. Check out more photos from the last week here

> Fishing Report 18 Oct 2009

We've just finished a two day Tairua kingfish trip, won by Sam Tee who competed on the TV show Jack of All Trades and took out the top prize.  Sam proved showed he is a dab hand at fishing as well, landing countless kingis to 20kg on livebaits and jigs, some nice snapper on softbaits, as did his mates and family who joined him on the trip. Check out more photos from the two days of awesome fishing charter action here

> Fishing Report 12 Oct 2009

The last two weeks have seen a consistent run of kingfish in the 10kg - 20kg range.  All our kingfish over that time have been caught on jigs, and the odd soft plastic.

We've had some hot sessions with quadruple hook ups on hard fighting New Zealand kingfish, screaming reels and plenty of yahooing!

Hit jigs out of Tairua at the moment are Broken Arrow and YeeHaa's centre weighted jig in chartreuse.

We've loaded a few of the better photos from the last week up here

There are some big snapper around at the moment, especially around the Aldermen Islands.

Pictured here is Joel Fraser with an impressive snapper caught on a 7" Nuclear Chicken, a nice end to a Tairua fishing trip for him and his father Adrian, where they caught their first every kingfish as well, up to 20kg.

The odd hapuka is showing up too. Also pictured here is Alicia from Australia, who caught a very nice hapuka on a Zest curved slider jig, prior to catching a very nice kingfish too!

Spring fishing at its best!

> Fishing Report 30 Sept 2009

The run of big 20kg - 30kg fish continued last week, and an awesome week's fishing with our Australian guests. 

Mario, Marinco (pictured here), Rob and Allan landed over 70 kingis, mostly big solid fish, with several over 20kg, and once pushing 30kg, all on their spin jig gear, all the big fish released back into the fishery.

They also landed a nice line of snapper each day.  Check out their fishing photos of four awesome days on the water here.

The three day trips afterwards have produced kings to about the 18kg mark, Katie Kilgour from Auckland pictured here with a 17kg kingfish caught on Saturday.  Katie did really well landing this fish on a Saragosa 8000 and Kilwell 300 rod.  More pics from the last few days here

> Fishing Report 19 Sept 2009

Another amazing day, quite possibly the best ever! Craig Heath and his mates got a 30kg kingfish, plenty over 20kg, a 19kg kingfish on an 8kg softbait rod and plenty of snapper on softbaits as well.

A dream day with dream conditions, check out the photos here

> Fishing Report 18 Sept 2009

We've just finished four Epic days fishing with Colin Lai and his fishing buddies from Singapore.

They struck four of the best days straight fishing for a long time!!  Awesome kingi action withbig kingfish smashing jigs and breaking them in half!!

Pictured here are Blake (top) and Danny (bottom) with two huge kingfish which were both released as they looked to be full of roe, and breeders that will stock our future fishery.  Both of these fish were in awesome condition and were around 1.35m and somewhere between 28kg and 30kg.

The guys released about sixty kingis and took home some nice snapper each night for dinner. Check out the full photo gallery of their New Zealand fishing charter here

> Fishing Report 14 Sept 2009

When that big kingfish comes along you want to take your chances!  John hooked this HUGE Tairua kingfish today with us on another Epic Adventures charter and the Stella 20000 was howling! He did a great job playing the fish, which peeled out plenty of line but 40 minutes later a huge kingfish hit the deck. Weighed at the Tairua Pauanui club it went a whopping 35.4 kilos, well done John!

> Fishing Report 10 Sept 2009

We've had a great week, with awesome snapper softbait fishing and straylining at the Mercury Islands, big kingfish hitting the jigs at the Aldermen Islands, as well as huge kahawai schools, Orca and dolphin swimming round the boat, spring is in full swing!!

Pictured here is Anthony Honeybone with some prime Mercury Islands snapper, Ants came up from Christchurch for our Tairua Pauanui club prizegiving where he cleaned up the fishing trophies and stayed on for a few days fishing. 

Also pictured is Ray, who came on a YeeHaa fishing tackle trip and cleaned up on the kingfish. For all our charter photos from the last week check out the weekly fishing charter gallery and report here

> Fishing Report 4 Sept 2009

SPRING IS HERE! The fishing has been up and down but when it has been on the kingfish have been feasting up large. Plenty of Tairua kingfish round the 20kg mark this week.  Pictured here is Mick Johnson who got his new PB of 20kg (on the scales) with us. Also Lance his mate with a very nice snapper caught softbaiting the Aldermen Islands.

We've got plenty more photos and more details on what was working from the week up here.

US client Lonnie McAlister was also back and into some Tairua kingis getting a new 20kg PB. En route to NZ we organised a three day trip through Vanuatu where they hooked into marlin, sailfish, wahoo and yellowfin.  He also took in the local Scallop Festival with us and some of the first fresh scallies of the season!

> Fishing Report 24 Aug 2009

We're into the tail end of winter now and the days are getting longer. 

Last week's Epic Adventures fishing charters saw some good fish being caught on a variety of gear and fishing methods. 

Nice trevally in close to shore, big kingfish on jigs out wide and plenty of nice sized snapper too on softbaits and good old fashioned bait too a the Aldies! Check out all the photos from the last week here

Sam Stringfield and his mates caught some nice fish with us yesterday, Sam his pictured here with a nice snapper taken straylining on Epic Adventures at the Alderman Islands, and his mate Yutaro with an 18kg kingi the same day on a Zest Curved Slider jig.

I can't think of a better way to spend the week really!!

> Fishing Report 5 Aug 2009

We've spent the last two days chasing kingi's and snapper around the Aldermen Islands, 30 minutes from our Tairua fishing base.

The crew of Darryl, Tom, Sarah and Nando from Aussie got into some hot fishing action with many personal best catches.

Tom got the biggest kingi at 23kg, caught on an orange jig again! Check out the belly on it!

We got a nice line of snapper on Guzzler softbaits and Gulp softbaits in the shallows. 

Electric chicken Guzzlers and Curried chicken and Nucler chicken Gulp's were the hot baits.

March 2012

Epic newsletter!

2012 / 2013

Kingfish Season

Now taking bookings for fishing Coromandel's 2012 / 2013 kingfish season. Make sure you are here for some hot winter jigging action and kingfish charters from June 13 - Nov 13.

From Nov 12 - Apr 13 (our peak tourism season) we already have a number of weeks booked out with multi day kingfish and gamefishing charters.  We still have plenty of gaps but...make sure you book in EARLY to ensure we can get you on the water!

2013 NZ Striped Marlin Season

Unlike our kingfish which we target on stickbaits, jigs, livebaits and soft plastics year round our Striped Marlin season is limited to late January to late March. The last three seasons we've had success catching marlin and yellowfin on light jig gear like Stellas and Jigging Master reels - awesome fun having a huge gamefishing on tackle built for kingfish.  If this sounds like you make sure you book now for game season 2013.

Learn how to fish softbaits for snapper

We're converts to softbait fishing for snapper! We're getting great results using GULP softbait on both snapper and kingis here in Tairua and if you'd like to learn more about this amazing form of fishing, come out on a softbait adventure or get some softbait tuition with us!

Vanuatu trip 2012

Our 2007 winter trip to Vanuatu was EPIC!!!   Everyone hooked into Blue Marlin!

Our Nov 2008 trip was YELLOWFIN madness!

Our 2009 Vanuatu fishing trip was doggie and GT mayhem

We'll be heading back in 2012 if you're keen to be a part of this Epic Adventure let us know. Think, Blue Marlin, dogtooth tuna, mahimahi, yellowfin and wahoo, great people and awesome food

SOUND LIKE YOU? BOOK YOUR SPACE FOR VANUATU 2012 BY

GETTING IN TOUCH WITH CARL