Labour Weekend was a stunner with lovely weather had by all and some great fishing had by the ones in the know. The fishing got better as the weekend progressed. The sounder was showing fish but they weren't biting.

Bowentown Fishing Club ran its Labour Weekend fishing competition on the Sunday with light winds and no swell. There were good numbers of entrants, 154 fish were weighed in and two snapper were around 6kg. One terakihi was 1.5kg and the biggest kahawai 3.3kg. The biggest fish came from the people that ventured out towards Mayor Island.

The winning snapper was caught out towards Mayor on a soft bait in deep water drifting, after they had spotted a good school of fish on the sounder and picking the snapper after the school had drifted away from the boat presumably feeding on the scraps left behind.

One amusing fishing tale from the Labour Weekend was when Paul Hitchman was pulling up a long-line, finding it very heavy getting the anchor up. Upon getting it towards the surface we noticed a big octopus attached to the grapnel. Paul promptly grabbed the landing net and got the octopus on board. It was approximately 80-90cm high, a very big octopus. No hooks, just a very close attachment to the grapnel that led to its demise.

Two kingfish were weighed in at the club over Labour Weekend, the biggest 16kg and the second 13.7kg. Both were taken off the outer bar area.

Fishing since Labour Weekend has been patchy with terakihi being the easiest to catch of the species.

Kontikis are catching good fish (snapper and gurnard) from the beach.

Fishermen inside the harbour are picking up good sized Trevally, but the snapper fishing has been very patchy.

The fishing outside the harbour came to a shuddering halt with the strong south-easterlies over the weekend. Snapper and gurnard are being taken in the shallower waters. I think the main reason for this is because the commercial boats have been hammering the waters off Waihi Beach when the conditions were atrocious and no recreational fisherman would venture out. Some of the locals are fuming seeing so many boats fishing so close to the shore, legally of course, but disappearing when the conditions allow all the recreational fishermen to venture out again and pick up the scraps that are left over.