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TK Helping anglers to their target
Take the guess work out of your game fishing and head straight to the hot spots where pelagic species maybe holding. The results speak for themselves, as many anglers around New Zealand and Australia are jumping on the TK Offshore crew and been rewarded with success!
Avid angler Kurt Ward and crew onboard Hack Attack recently bagged a 60kg yellowfin with the help of the TK Offshore Crew platform off the
Bay of Islands.
The Offshore Crew, developed by offshore commercial fishing captain TK Walker, provides detailed meteorological data for fishers targeting pelagic species.
Fishing 300-400m off the Bay of Islands, Kurt was out in perfect conditions, with a beautiful day and flat turquoise water ahead of him.
“There was a lot of bird life around, but not a lot of visible fish, though,” he says.
The team hit the water around 9:30am targeting yellowfin, with a hook-up occurring around 1pm.
"We'd heard there were a few around earlier in the season. There had been one caught prior. So we just thought we'd go and give it a crack, and it worked out,” Kurt says.
Kurt says the fight was a tough one.
“It was a bit of a fight, all right. It kept going under and behind the boat, it was just all over the show. There was no real pattern to it.”
"Very nearly saw a grown man cry," he laughs.
Kurt said using the TK Offshore Crew helped determine where to fish.
"The night prior, I put a message through on the Offshore app saying we were heading that way and we were pretty keen on some marks,” Kurt says.
“There was another guy hanging out there as well, so TK put marks up for both of us, which was great.”
The Offshore Crew uses world-leading technology provided by Timezero Navigation Software to provide high resolution, multi-layer data forecasts on sea surface temperature, sea surface anomalies, phytoplankton, chlorophyll, thermocline and temperature shear and other factors to provide subscribers with accurate, up-to-date forecasts on where the pelagic species will be gathering to feed.
The platform provides forecasts on Fridays for the weekend’s fishing and Tuesday mornings so the community can keep track of any changes in the local conditions. It provides full coverage of the entire coastline of New Zealand as well as Queensland, New South Wales and Victoria. There are plans to expand to other areas as demand requires.
“I keep an eye on any changes and am in contact with all our subscribers so I can update subscribers in a particular area if there are any significant changes,” TK says.
The platform breaks the coastline into regions – such as Northland, Bay of Islands, Barrier-Coromandel – and gives detailed high-resolution images for each region with the points of interest marked and numbered in the images. It also provides the long and lat details for each mark, so subscribers can load the details into their plotter and make their way directly to the points of interest, saving time and fuel.
"The information TK puts up is quite helpful. He's happy to share information that he's heard, it works out well,” says Kurt.
Members have access to TOC’s knowledge library of “how to” videos on a variety of subjects, including swordfish strategies, how TK has set up his Timezero system, how to process your swordfish catch etc.
“These videos are subjects that our subscribers have asked for. We have an open forum where our community joins together to discuss all topics related to fishing and share photos and stories on how their fishing has been going,” says TK.
TK participates in all conversations and shares his knowledge with the community.
"We also provide a video tour of the coastline with each forecast where we walk the subscribers through each area and explain the different conditions on the day, and why we have selected each mark so our subscribers not only have the information but an explanation of why the selected areas will be holding bait and the target pelagic species,” TK says.
“This helps to educate our subscribers on what to consider when seeking their target species.”
Subscribers receive information using the Kajabi-based app, which is specifically designed for subscription sites.
“The information cannot be overlaid on a plotter, you simply load the long and lat for the mark you have decided to fish into your plotter.”
A subscription to the TK Offshore platform costs $24.95 per month or $249.50 per year (two free months).
Some of TK's happy members over the last month
