Scallop season set to sizzle
The scallop season opens tomorrow. Keen scallopers will be heading out to check out the condition of the early season delicacies. Scallops are found in harbours and on sand or mud bottoms out to about 50 metres deep. Like most other sea creatures, scallops start life as a freeswimming embryo, but after about 48 hours they attach themselves to a rock or structure on the bottom where they live until reaching a few millimetres in size when they drop to the seabed. Like all bi-valves they are filter feeders, sitting on or just under the sand with their shells slightly open, straining water to extract plankton. Scallops grow quickly and reach 60mm across in about a year, when they start breeding.
For most of the country the scallop season opened on July15, but in the top half of the North Island it starts tomorrow. The delay is intended to give the delicate shellfish more time to regain condition after the cold winter. It also allows more fishing through the summer, as the traditional season ends on February 14 while in the north it now runs until March 31.
Divers may take a limit for up to two people who assist by operating the boat, and scallops may be eaten at sea but any eaten count as part of the daily quota of 20 per person, and the empty shells must be kept as evidence of both the numbers and the minimum size of 100mm of the scallops taken. All other scallops must be taken ashore in the shell, so they can be measured.
When dredging for scallops, only those actively involved in fishing are entitled to a daily bag limit.
When the weather allows boats to get out there has been some hot fishing action under work-ups in the Hauraki Gulf between Waiheke Island and Coromandel.
One nice bag of snapper was also taken recently straylining at The Noises, and some fish have been coming from drift fishing in 30m. While a ledger rig is commonly used when drifting, another technique which works well is to use a short trace of just over a metre, with a teardrop sinker above the trace. This type of sinker sits well on the bottom, and the trace lies on the seabed. But as with all drifting, keeping the baits on the bottom can be a problem. One answer is to fish with the reel in freespool, thumbing the spool and letting line slip out to keep the sinker on the bottom. When the line starts pulling out simply flick the reel into gear and start winding, and there should be a fish on the end.
Other areas to produce fish recently are the low foul between Anchorite Rock and Channel Island, with snapper to 4.5kg, blue cod, kingfish and trevally in the bag; and off Cape Colville where kingfish action has been hot.
In the Firth of Thames there have been some fish out in the middle, but the action which has really surprised locals is the continuing fishing in shallow water off Pipiroa, at the top of the firth near Thames.
This sort of shallow water snapper fishing is expected in summer when the fish move in close, but it has continued right through July in threeto-four metres of water. Then when floods tore through the Ohinemuri and other rivers like the Piako, the influx of fresh water would be expected to push the snapper out. But this did not happen and they were
still being caught last week, and while the snapper were not large they were nice pan-sized fish and were full of small crabs.
Fishing around the mussel farms has been inconsistent, straylining around the islands is producing some nice snapper which is ideal for kayakers.
In Bay of Plenty, tarakihi are moving into shallow water and gurnard can be found on the sand, but snapper fishing is patchy although long-lining with torpedoes from the beach in the evenings has been good.
Snapper fishers have been faring better in the Bay of Islands, with large baits like whole fresh mackerel rigged on 10/0 hooks to deter small pickers producing some good snapper close in to the rocks off Long Bay, and there are some good kingfish on the outer reefs in the bay.
Fresh water
Fly fishermen in Rotorua are looking forward to continuing runs of spawning trout on the beaches at Lakes Rotoiti and Tarawera. The three-year-old mature fish return to the beach where they were released as yearlings, and inclement weather is welcomed by the anglers who know that when the water is stirred up and rivulets run into the lake the trout will venture into the shallows.
Places such as The Pipe at Hinehopu and The Landing at Te Wairoa will be popular after more rain during the week.
There has been an improvement in the size and condition of trout running up the Tongariro River this winter and some excellent fishing has been reported. Continued rain has pulled some trout into the Tongariro Delta. This is one spot which can fish well on a bright moon, as you are casting into deep water, but it is important to be right in the current at one of the mouths of the river.