Rarotonga Fishing

When to fish?

When is the best time to fish in Rarotonga? Depends on what species you want to target.

Game Fish

Wahoo are mostly winter fish (May-Sep) and start biting from 6am onwards. Usually caught along the coast of the island but also found by the FADs or with drifting floaties. Trolling only for wahoo.

Tuna are frequently caught at dawn and dusk which in summer means very early starts (4am onwards). They can be caught all day like most other species but do prefer the first and last light. Tuna season runs from December - April but often caught all year round. Tuna are caught on the troll or multiple bait options can be used - chumming or drop stone.

Mahimahi & Marlin come to play once the sun is up and requires searching for birds. Mostly caught on the troll but if near a FAD then baits are also effective. Main season from December - April.

Bottom Fishing

Bottom fish are avaliable all year round but do fatten up over the winter months before spawning in the spring. Ideal time would be July - August.

Flying fish and GT's

GT's are avaliable all year round but they are more abundant when the flying fish are in season. The flying fish season runs from October - April.

Other Information

Rarotonga has pleasant conditions all year round. Winter drops to a chilly 19 degrees Celsius with summer sometimes reaching 30. The water temp ranges from 24-28, has fantastic visibility (40m+) and very little current.

Fishing Rarotonga, Cook Islands, is like fishing in many places, sometimes you're hot, other times you're not - that’s why it’s called fishing, not catching!

We specialize in GT fishing with large numbers landed over 20kg and a few over 40kg.

With game fishing, our usual target species include Wahoo, mahi-mahi and yellow fin tuna. We can offer charters to target specific species such as;

Yellow fin tuna, Mahimahi, Wahoo, Marlin, Giant Trevalley, Dogtooth Tuna, Red Snapper (Deep Sea 300m+)

Spear fishing is extremely exciting but can often be disappointing. It is very dependent on the fish runs at the time where we can have weeks of fantastic fishing then weeks of nothing - just lucky if you time it right! Most open water spearing is done at the local FADS, these floats are about 2-3 km of the reef and offer the best chance for game species.

#fishingcharter #cookislands #rarotonga #raratonga #fishing #gamefishing