Man, I can't believe this, thank god I saved the Dec Report before starting Jan., did a paragraph [about an hour's typing--no really, well 1/2 an hour would you believe maybe 20 min] and we had an instant power cut, no flickering of lights, nothing but instant dark and total report loss.

So, January started much the same as Dec. ended with pretty good fishing, although we were getting more days with more current and harder fishing as a result. Catches were still pretty good, but you had to be tuned in and make the most of it while they were feeding.

When there is strong current there will likely be a relatively short period after the tide change when the fish are feeding, sometimes it might only be 1/2 an hour to an hour after the slack water that they'll feed for, they're not going to bother if they've got to burn too much energy to eat. 

When there isn't much current it's a different story, sometimes they'll tick along all day, others they seem to have no pattern at all, feeding at whim. So it's a good idea to be ready to go as soon as the anchor's dropped and the boat's stopped.

By mid Jan. Town Pt had pretty well gone off the boil, the stronger currents were more regular and the fish sign was less and less, so time to start looking elsewhere.

We took a group of my regulars, Darren and the lads, on a jigging trip, dragging lures in between jigging spots. We picked up a few albacore and skippies on the lures, nothing big, but something at least.
 We started at the Penguin Shoals, then on to Tuhua reef at Mayor, then onto one of the knolls east of Mayor, 160 to 180m and got a couple of hook ups straight away, but alas just bleeding barracuda, they were bleeding too, when they went back into the water.

On to the Astrolab, where there'd been schools of kahawai around for months, so we were all hopeful of a bit of kingy action. Darren got 1 legal one, which he released, wasn't even a metre, and they caught a few kahawai,but another nice day, shame about the fish, sort of trip.

The Tauranga Charter Boat Assn competition was next on the agenda, Friday we dragged lures around Mayor and up towards the Aldermans, but the only marlin we saw popped his head up in front of the boat, did a few bill swipes at nothing in particular and then took off in the opposite direction to our lures.
Richard did catch an albacore, but that was about it.

We anchored around Mayor, and decided to head to the Rangatiras as the weather looked a bit iffy for Sunday. A nice day, good conditions, but once again nothing in the way of game fish.

We'd done well on kingies at the Rangas in the past, but this time it was looking a bit bald, and afew hours of drifting and jigging saw Trevor get 1 small kingy and that was that. We overnighted at Motiti, tried some bottom fishing around Town Pt, then steamed to the Astrolab where we at least got onto some nice tarakihi and the odd snapper.

It'd been a pretty tough tournament all round, but  Richard ended up winning the albacore  section, Richard and Trevor got 1st and 2nd in tarakihi, and Wade 1st in the snapper. Russ Hawkins won the overall, with some nice bluenose he'd caught on the Friday. 

Then it was back to bottom fishing for the rest of the month, with the area around Motiti tending to be the most productive, generally in the 50m and deeper areas.