Kayak Fishing - targeting gurnard

As water and air temperatures dip, I see fewer and fewer kayak fishers out on the water.

Yet there is one good reason why you shouldn't mothball the kayak and hang up your tackle. Most fish just don't keep well in the freezer, which rules out freezing down a supply to last the whole winter. So if you love eating fresh fish, as I do, it leaves you with no other alternative than to go fishing on a regular basis.

Admittedly the winter conditions are nowhere near as benign as in the warmer months, but if you dress for the cold a fishing trip does not have to turn into an ordeal. You just have to be more watchful of your local marine weather forecast and plan your trips accordingly. Also, due to the lower temperatures, it generally pays to limit your inactive time on the water. You might have got hot paddling to your chosen fishing spot, but once at anchor the cold soon begins to creep up on you, especially if you have worked up a sweat getting there.

Your feet are usually the first to go numb, particularly if they are wet. For this reason I much prefer to dress in breathable waterproof outerwear with polyprop or fleece layers underneath, as opposed to the more common wetsuit. My most recent discovery is to wear my breathable trout-fishing waders, which have waterproof neoprene booties attached to keep my feet bone-dry and warm. And just in case this practice attracts adverse comments, let me say that a) I always wear them with a wading belt, and b) I have tested them by purposely rolling over, and can confirm that little water enters the waders.

While most kayak fishers of our warmer east coast waters never give up targeting snapper, we on the other coast have to switch to alternative fish species during the colder months. For us a prime winter kayak target is the gurnard. This handsome fish is common on sandy or muddy bottoms, but unlike snapper does not desert our shallows for deeper water when the drop in temperature occurs.

Gurnard are aggressive biters and, for their size, put up a gallant fight. This is greatly assisted by the large, wing-like pectoral fins, which provide the fish with better drag resistance when fighting against the lifting power of a rod. However, my main reason for pulling carrots is for eating, because gurnard are an excellent table fish that many people prefer to snapper. They are also one of the easiest fish to process. With a few quick strokes of the knife you have a couple of firm, boneless fillets.

I am lucky to live in New Plymouth, because that gives me access to good gurnard grounds right outside our harbour. Even inside the port's main breakwaters I can usually snare a feed if weather conditions make it unwise to venture further out. This good fortune saves me from having to brave the cold Taranaki winter surf anywhere else along the coast to get within reach of good fishing.

Because gurnard are primarily found on sand and mud, a sounder can take the guesswork out of whether or not you are fishing over the right ground. A sandy bottom is like a featureless plain, with few, if any, characteristics that might be favoured by gurnard. The small crabs, fish and worms are thinly spread across these sub-sea deserts, which in turn forces gurnard to roam widely for their food. They tend to do so in small groups, accounting for why a number of bites occur in quick succession, followed by periods of inactivity.

There is a view that gurnard don't like strong currents, but this has not been my experience on the West Coast. Some of my best catches have been in strong sets and some of the worst when there was no discernable current at all. As I use berley, I rely on the current to produce a good berley trail. On several trips I have noticed that when the current stopped, so did the bite.

My preferred fishing method involves anchoring on a proven area of sand in about 10-15m of water. Of course you can find gurnard shallower or deeper, but this depth suits me because it's deep enough so that I don't scare fish under the hull, yet it's still reasonably easy to anchor up, berley and recover hooked fish. Due to our gently sloping ocean floor, such depths can be reached within one kilometre of the shore. I also have a few productive spots at 30m, but this depth requires a lot more work for similar results.

With all this emphasis on soft-plastic fishing, one almost feels guilty using natural bait and berley, but in my experience with gurnard, the former works better than drifting with either soft-plastic or natural bait. My theory is that because gurnard need to roam far and wide for their food, any fish down-current will sooner or later intercept the berley trail and, if interested, they will eventually come within catching distance. In a nutshell, it makes more sense to let the gurnard find me rather than the other way around.

Often it takes close to half an hour before the first fish arrives, and on a good day they keep on coming thereafter. At times it can get pretty hectic, with one gurnard being hauled up while the other rod is already bucking. The frantic struggle of a hooked fish jiggles the other bait up and down, and this frequently hooks a second fish while the rod is still in the rod holder.

I generally fish with two rigs; one is cast down the berley trail and the other hangs pretty much under the hull, close behind the berley pot.

The rig itself is also very simple - essentially a modified ledger rig. It consists of a metre-long 25kg mono main-stem, with two loops at either end, and a couple of very tiny dropper loops spaced in between. To these I attach pre-tied #3/0 circle hooks on 150mm traces, and I always keep a bundle of these pre-tied hooks in a plastic bag in my PFD pocket in case I need a quick hook change, or have to replace one bitten off by a spiny dogfish.

The modern circle hook was developed for long-line fishing, so to get the best out of this hook design you need to simulate long-line conditions as much as possible. One of the amazing features of such hooks is that most fish are hooked in the mouth rather than in the gut. This comes about for two reasons: firstly, due to the jamming action of the inward-pointing hook point, and secondly because the short long-line traces provide the resistance needed to 'roll' the hook around the outer edge of a fish's mouth. There it jams, and the fish usually hooks itself as it struggles to get free.

I try to duplicate this resistance with a 3-4 ounce sinker at the bottom of the ledger rig, which I cast way down the berley trail. I have never gut-hooked a gurnard with this set-up, nor any snapper for that matter. By contrast, on a recent snapper expedition I used the same rig as a strayline from a bait-feeder-type reel, but with only a half-ounce sinker. Since this set-up did not provide the initial resistance to roll the hook, nearly half the fish ended up gut-hooked!

When fishing under the hull, I use the swell to bounce my sinker on the bottom. This not only makes a 'noise', it also jiggles the baits up and down - actions gurnard find very appealing. All they then need to do is swim up and grab the bait, and, when they turn, the circle hook rolls against the pressure of the soft rod tip. That is all it takes - no mad striking or other rod action is required to do the damage.

I used to tie all sorts of Xmas decorations to my hooks and the main stem. However, over the years I have done away with such embellishments, not because they don't work, but because I feel they are not necessary to make gurnard bite any better.

Growing up after the war and decades of working in the conservation field taught me not to waste things. I save all trout frames and roe from our winter Tongariro trips, along with whatever is left over from other suitable fish, to make my berley. For bait I use salted kahawai marinated in tuna oil. Both seem to work just as well, if not better at times, than some of my mates' pheromone-laced commercial concoctions.

Apart from the cold, there are other downsides to winter fishing. With the drop in water temperature we get an annual invasion of spiny dogfish and red cod. At times these nuisance fish can literally drive you nuts, with nearly every cast ending up with a trace bitten off, a madly wriggling spiny dog, or a slimy red cod. Gurnard are either pushed out or never get a chance to get to the bait first. When this happens it is time to shift.

As if these trash fish were not bad enough, this season we are getting plagued by big paddle crabs that can strip bait in a matter of minutes, too. A friend, who has been fishing all his life, told me that he had seen such a crab explosion before, and thinks that this severe competition for the same food causes some fish to leave the crab-infested area. An interesting theory that shows how interlinked food chains really are. Decimate the predators and prey numbers can explode.

Of course the reverse is also true, but when I see huge purse-seiners hoovering up baitfish schools as if there is no tomorrow, it shows that this connection has not sunk in with those charged with managing our fisheries for the future.

However, looking out the window, I don't mind sitting in a warm room writing this article. The sky looks like dull lead, big whitecaps dance on an ugly grey sea and spits of rain herald a brewing gale. Not the kind of day I want to be out there pulling carrots. ?

	This article is reproduced with permission of New Zealand Fishing News 2009 - by Herb Spagnal Re-publishing elsewhere is prohibited