Catching kahawai from the shore

  • HTC - Kahawai

Love them or hate them, no one can deny how tough kahawai are for their size – and that alone makes them worth targeting at times. Craig Worthington offers a few insights on the type of conditions preferred by these fish…

We had camped out, thanks to the landowner, on the edge of a secluded Northland beach. It was late last year, the air was crisp – it wasn’t quite summer yet – and the sky was blue.

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We had snapper on the menu for dinner, so the boys gathered sticks for a fire on the beach and pulled up a few logs for seats. It was a great evening.

Out at sea, there were terns working and general signs of fish activity. As the light started to fade, a rippling patch of water materialised from beneath the birds and began heading our way. We didn’t quite know what to make of it at first. It looked like nothing more than a wind ruffle, but it was definitely moving inshore. 

Soon we could see an occasional fish cart-wheeling into the air from the middle of the disturbed water. A kahawai school for sure. They continued moving directly toward the beach as though they were on some pre-determined mission, coming right in to within a few metres of the sandy shore.  

This caught us all a little by surprise. Dinner was soon forgotten and a scrabble for fishing tackle began...

There wasn’t much to be had. The hike in had kept fishing tackle to a bare minimum, with heavy casting lures among the first items to be culled from the pack. Luckily, one of the kids had bought his ‘lucky’ lure with him. This was cast over the dumping shore break towards the fish. A kahawai took hold almost immediately, but jumped off in a gill-rattling leap.

A second fish connected on the very next cast, but also removed the hook on a jump. Then the whole school became wary, moving out of casting range and quietly carrying on their way down the coast.

So we missed out on adding any kahawai to our beachside fryup, but did gain a wonderful insight into kahawai behaviour: these open-ocean coast fish had obviously made a conscious decision to move into the safety of this shallow beach gutter just as night fell.

It re-confirmed some kahawai observations I had made many years ago showing that kahawai really do use shallow, sloping beaches, surf gutters and rugged breaking reefs as safety zones. Staying offshore at night is obviously dangerous for them.

This insight was reinforced on a later visit when, from the top of a high hill, I noticed a dark mass of kahawai in the very same beach hole. Dolphins could be seen patrolling the hole’s seaward perimeter, going backwards and forwards in a fairly unhurried manner, and obviously not being game enough to risk the shallow waters in which the kahawai were holding. For the moment they had them trapped, though at the same time the kahawai were safe. I wondered what carnage the high tide might bring.

Catching kahawai from the shore

Kahawai habitats

This got me thinking about the range of habitats in which shorebased anglers can find kahawai and how difficult they can be to track down sometimes.

Kahawai move around a lot, and too often there seems to be little reason as to why they have done so. Unlike some of our other dominant coastal species, kahawai are almost ubiquitous, but at the same time sometimes a little bit random.

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For shore-based anglers to catch kahawai regularly, it pays to fully appreciate what their favoured habitats are and when they are likely to be found in each different locality.

Here’s a run-down of some of the best places to look:

  • Mangrove-lined estuaries: These are generally inhabited by small- to medium-sized kahawai, but are none-the-less excellent places to cast a fly, small spinner or soft-bait. Clear or green water mangrove estuaries are best – you won’t find too much action in the brown tidal rivers. Any of the many mangrove-lined streams in the northern half of the country are worth a look. Autumn, spring and early summer are all good seasons.
  • Ocean-facing river mouths: One of my favourite locations – although all open-coast river mouths can be affected by big swells and annoying winds. On good days, especially gorgeous mornings, they can be fantastic. A full size range of kahawai can be found at river mouths, with big fish hanging around northern river mouths in winter, spring and early summer from August right through to December. When the heat of summer hits, big fish become scarce in northern New Zealand, but further south the action picks up. The big southern rivers host large schools of solid kahawai right through summer and autumn.
  • Bridges: Bridges are brilliant. Their foundations and piles interrupt current flow and create areas of high current. Fish these during peak tidal flow; the more squeezed and aggressive the tidal flow, the better the fishing. Some bridges have the additional benefit of strong lighting, which can trigger the night fishing. Big fish often turn up after dark.
  • Wharves: Same as for bridges – the faster the flow the better, especially if the wharf is more of a jetty with little structure. Bigger wharves with less flow can be good if they have strong night-time lighting. Even then though, the presence of some sort of current movement really helps. As they say: ‘No run, no fun.’ The larger kahawai will often target yelloweyed mullet (sprats) and piper (garfish) under wharf lights, so large lures and flies often work well.
  • Beach-hole sanctuaries: There used to be numerous locations like this up and down the coast. Spring on the northeastern coast was the best time to target them; large schools of massive kahawai riding sparkling surf were quite a sight in the old days. Unfortunately, these fish were hit hard by unrestrained commercial beach netting in the 1990s, but are slowly beginning to return. Surfers often have good intel on the best places to find them. Always remember to cast a suspicious eye over any large dark blobs sitting quietly in the surf.
  • Low harbour channels with current: As a fly-rodder, this is my favourite kahawai-hunting locality these days. In sandy harbours with wide, shallow channels, expect considerable kahawai activity on the leading edge of the incoming tide and again on the draining tide as the channel empties. The great beauty of these sheltered locations is that you can often get calm water, which allows you to spot the fish as they move with the current, especially in glassy conditions at dawn. Laying a careful cast with a fly rod across the path of a cruising kahawai in a clear harbour channel is pretty special.
  • Any rocky point with current: My favoured kahawai location in my immediate area has, you guessed it – current – lots of it. And it flows over and along the edge of a particularly nasty-looking bunch of shallow rocks. The current really rips. Pulling a small popper across the top of the current leads to big explosions and high leaping, gill-rattling hook-ups.
  • Harbour mouths with rocks and sand: I know of several locations like this. They are all hot kahawai producers, have a mix of rock and sand with current flowing through and over them, along with an occasional swell coming in from the open ocean to stir things up. Low tide is generally best. This is one location where the mid-tide currents can be too strong. Look for calmer water as the tide bottoms out. Low tide can also provide better protection from breaking waves on the open coast because the harbour bars are more exposed and take much of the energy out of the waves.

The magic elements in most of these hot kahawai locations are current, safe habitats for kahawai to live in and feed, and things that create large and accessible baitfish accumulations (such as wharf lights at night). Find some of these vital elements and the kahawai won’t be too far away.

Catching kahawai from the shore

Finding the biggest kahawai

The size range of inshore kahawai can be everything from tiny to monstrous. Juvenile kahawai stay inshore for their first three years of life, and by the time they begin to venture further afield they should have grown to about a kilo and half in weight and maybe 45 centimetres in length. These young fish have a selection of larger yellow and brown spots along their side to quickly identifies them as immature fish. While they are young they will dominate this inshore environment.

You may hear the biggest kahawai referred to as ‘ocean-going kahawai’, but you don’t always have to get out on the ocean to catch them. They do school out in open water, but can be caught right inshore around the rocks and up estuaries, and are often found off big river mouths on the open coast.

The general trend is for smaller kahawai to be found in the protected waters inside harbours and estuaries, and along the shallowest margins of surf beaches, while the big fish are found on the open-coast locations or around those current-rich harbour spots where plenty of baitfish congregate. 

 

 


October - 2016 - Craig Worthington

New Zealand Fishing News Magazine.
Copyright: NZ Fishing Media Ltd.
Re-publishing elsewhere is prohibited

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