A typical Aldermen Islands snapper caught on a 4" Gulp Pogy softbait

Rikki does a jigging charter with us on a regular basis and caught this big 20kg Hapuku on a Zest curved slider jig

Hapuku

Hapuku, or 'puka as Kiwi's like to call them are a great eating fish, and so often we will fish for them in conjunction with targeting other sportfish during the rest of the day.  A 'puka is a prize fish for many New Zealand anglers, especially caught on a jig.

In winter we will fish for puka around the same grounds as we jig for kingfish, and in summer we will stop for a spot of fishing while out at the gamefish grounds if that is what our clients want to do.

Popular methods for targeting hapuku are livebaiting, jigging and drifting big whole squid baits.  Yum!!

Carl reviving a nice marlin before it is released.

Striped Marlin and Blue Marlin

New Zealand is famous for its Striped Marlin 'catch and release' fishery and an increasing number of Blue Marlin are caught and released every year as well. Zane Grey made the fishery in New Zealand famous and had a game base on two islands in close proximity to Tairua - Ohinau Island and Mayor Island.

The continental shelf runs close to Tairua, just behind the Aldermen Islands and it is a very short run to the game grounds.  We're ideally set up for one person wanting to chase marlin for multiple days in summer without having to hire a huge boat all by themselves.

When trolling we primarily run Bonze gamefishing lures.  Bonze is a well known New Zealand lure maker and has custom made lures specifically for New Zealand's waters. 

We are increasingly moving towards livebaiting for marlin, concentrating on areas that are holding bait and fishing for them very much in the same manner as we would kingfish, fishing livebaits around bait schools and stucture known to hold marlin. 

Striped Marlin typically fall into the 80-120kg range and caught between January and April/May, and Blue Marlin 150-250kg normally caught mid January until mid March.

A 12kg mahimahi caught on a softbait on light tackle

MahiMahi

Mahimahi are not normally associated with New Zealand waters but they are becoming an increasingly common catch during gamefishing season.  The warm, rich currents that sweep down from the tropics in summer bring with them plenty of mahimahi.

A floating bit of debri, like a log (or broken surfboard!) are good to keep an eye out for as they will usually hold schools of mahimahi.

They are a common bycatch on trolled lures at the very peak of summer, and we also have caught them on jigs while jigging for kingfish. There seems to be a run of mahimahi just before the water cools down in April.

This year we had a school of mahimahi (probably about five hundred of them!) under the boat and we cast softbaits to them on light tackle - now that was a good day!

Mahimahi are known for their blistering run, aerial antics, and also their great eating qualities - they is nothing quite like a bit of cajun BBQ'd mahimahi after a hard days fishing!!

The boat in the middle of a school of kahawai - the noise was deafening!

John Pellew with a hard fighting kahawai caught popper fishing with a surface popper!

Kahawai

Speaking of aerial antics - enter the humble New Zealand kahawai!

Pound for pound the kahawai is the hardest fighting of maybe any fish in the ocean, with big blistering runs, up to a dozen jumps and heaps of power!  On 2kg light tackle expect to play the fish for up to twenty minutes! 

Kahawai are the most prevalent of New Zealand's recreational fish and expect to encounter plenty of them on any trip to New Zealand.We often encounter big schools on the surface - great fun for salt water fly, or casting little jigs, spinners or softbaits. 

They are also great fun to catch on poppers, and while targeting them this way, don't be suprised if a kingfish comes along and devours the popper first!

Most international anglers are amazed after fighting a kahawai that we then go and stick a hook through its back for a livebait, but they are a favourite bait for both kingfish and marlin.

While not renowned for their eating qualities, they are fantastic smoked, very nice fresh and superb in fish cakes, including our famous Thai fish cake mixture!

A nice trev that got a bit greedy - check out the size of the jig it nailed!

Trevally

Giving the kahawai a good run for its money is the trevally.  Trevs are powerful fish, who much like Yellowfin tuna will dig down deep circling the boat.

Trevs in New Zealand grow to about 8kg, with the common size being a 2kg-3kg fish, great fun on light tackle!

We normally target trevally while livebaiting for kingfish, and waiting for big kingi's to come along.  We'll lay down a big burley trail and often have trevally feeding behind the boat, when we'll drift a cube of bait back to them.

We also find trevally feeding on the surface around many of our jigging grounds, here they won't take anything but a saltwater fly most of the time, although they've been known to get greedy and scoff down a jig at times!

John Dory

The majority of our softbait and livebait fishing charters will encounter a John Dory or two.  They are great eating, maybe the best eating fish in the ocean, and very prevalent in New Zealand waters.

A softbait trailed behind the boat while we are softbaiting for a livebait down for a kingi will often getting eaten by a John Dory, who feed mainly on small baitfish.

If we are tagging and releasing our kingi', the John Dory makes a nice fish for the table to take home at the end of the day.

Sean Cummings with a 44kg Yellowfin Tuna caught on the first week of January in 2009!

Sean Cummings again with a nice 10kg Albacore Tuna caught on a trolled bibless swimmer

Crayfish are an occasional bycatch on baits, and of course there are plenty on offer if you want to go for a dive off the coast of Tairua, the place is loaded with crays!!!

Yellowfin Tuna

Yellowfin tuna are a prize catch and superb eating.  They have one of the most powerful first run of any fish in the ocean and will put up one of the hardest meanest fights you will find.  For this reason they are probably one of THE most sought after fish in the ocean.

The main Yellowfin run goes for one month from late December to early January. Trolling around surface feeding fish, dolphins and gannets is the best way to catch them, we usually use a variety of lures in the spread as we fundamentally believe trolling for yellowfin requires a different approach to targetting marlin.

Likewise cubing over seamounts and if you can keep up with the schools dropping some jigs or livebaits into them, are other effecfive ways to target yellowfin.

If you want to seriously target a yellowfin we recommend booking 3-4 days early in January - that is what Sean Cummings pictured opposite did with us in 2009 and it payed dividends for him with the only yellowfin to be weighed in Tairua in 2009 and a whopping 45kg!  They are there, you just have to spend a bit of time chasing them.

Albacore Tuna

Albacore (Albies or Alberts) are caught in New Zealand right through the year. Smaller fish are around in numbers over summer, while big fish to 20kg are caught at the offshore knolls in winter. 

Throughout 2008 and 2009 we had a big run over a number of months of fish in the 8-15kg range. Therse are great sport on light gear and also superb eating (some would say almost as good as yellowfin).  They also break the day up when targeting yellowfin in January.

Again we'll troll a yellowfin type spread withe lots of small pushers, daisy chains, bibless swimmers and feathered tuna lures.We tend to run a lot of bright lures when targeting tuna, in the pink and jellybean colours.

Once we have located a big patch of feeding Albies then other methods can be employed like jigging for them and also cubing and livebaiting for them - good fun!

Most the the albacore we catch are on or near structure so they are in close promximity in Dec and January to other types of fishing like livebaiting and jigging for kingis.

Crayfish (Red Spiny Lobster)

While only an occassional bycatch on baits, crayfish are predominant along the coastline, which Carl has grown up diving, and if you're into diving as well we can stop on the way out or way back in and try and get a feed of crayfish for you. Along the way you will see plenty of lobster pots set by commercial crayfisherman whoe work the coastline.

You can't quite beat a crayfish freshly split in two and put on the BBQ with some garlic butter! 

Terakihi

Terakihi (or terrors as well call them) are one of New Zealand's top eating and table fish. They are mainly caught bottomg fishing in 30m-100m of water, on flasher rigs, small hooks and shellfish for bait. 

They are not a hard fighting sportsfish like our kingis, snapper, trevally, tuna or marlin, but catching a feed of terakihi is a great way to finish the day up and give the arms a little bit of a rest!  Some times the bites can be red hot and you will be pulling in terrors one after the other. 

Mako sharks

For most of the year, the waters off Tairua hold very good numbers of sharks, especially that inquisitive dyanamo of the shark family - the MAKO!  While we are not that in to targeting them for sport, you can bet your bottom dollar you are going to run into a MAKO at some stage, and they make for a nice little interlude with rod loaded up and line screaming, and after a photo and some antics by the boat we release them to go and cause some havoc elsewhere!

Pictured here is a 80kg est. Mako that took a jig of all things, they are known to harass livebaits as well, and often turn up in a chunk trail.