New Daiwa Free Swimmer Reels

The Mokohinau Islands are a stunning fishery within fairly easy reach of Auckland for trailer boats. The fishing is (sometimes) amazing, and the scenery is always spectacular. Take a look at a bit of action fishing the Mokes for a day with the team from Roger's Boatshop in Albany.

NZ Fishing World presents a quick look at the fishing off the west coast of NZ's North Island with Rob Fitzgerald from Venturer Fishing Charters. Heading out with Rob is a fantastic safe, and secure way of crossing the infamous Raglan Bar and getting into some awesome fishing action.

Game season fever is well and truly on us, and the sensational, and very much welcome, yellowfin tuna run this year, has got trailer boat fishermen across the country dusting off the big gear to get into the action. When it comes to game fishing, you can either go the whole nine yards, with a mega launch equipped with riggers dripping with bling, or you can tow one lure behind your tinnie. As long as you can reach the fishing zone, and do around 7 knots all day, you are well in with a chance at anything this year. We’ve seen massive blue and even black marlin, bigeye tuna, tons of albacore, stripeys, mahi mahi, and in good numbers up both northern NZ coastlines. Incredibly, we spotted no less than nine marlin in two days north east of Barrier early January. Just amazing that these fish are out there in good numbers.

To hell with the diet, there are times when fresh fish just screams for a light, crunchy beer batter. If you are looking for a fool-proof, instant, mouth-watering golden batter that cracks like a potato chip, makes you look like a master chef and pleases any crowd, then get yourself down to your nearest supermarket and pick up a packet of Fogdog.

Daiwa are arguably the world’s biggest banger in the fishing tackle market, so when they release a new top end product we expect it to be great. The Daiwa Certate spinning reel is well up the chain of ‘bling’ and will set you back in the neighbourhood of $800 give or take. Not their very top end, Branzino and Exist are there for the Rolex fans, but certainly as good a reel as you should ever need, and capable of handling some mega sized fish, and doing it smoothly with a dash of ‘mmmmm I love using this reel’.

The shredded rubber, vinyl and other material that makes up most of our trolling lure skirts is pretty flimsy and apt to get damaged, torn or simply chopped clean off by our finny friends. Happily though, replacing them is not that difficult.

Fisheries New Zealand invites written submissions in response to the request from anyone who has an interest in the species concerned or in the effects of fishing in the area concerned.

Graeme Paterson is always seeking new fishing experiences and to find out more about the sport. Here he combines two popular methods of targeting kingfish, and got the result he was after.

In this update we look at progress in the Exotic Caulerpa Accelerated Programme and advise on two new locations of exotic caulerpa in the Hauraki Gulf.

The recreational pāua fishery along the Kaikōura coast opens today for a limited 2-month season.