Snapper fishing in shallow water

Craig Worthington suggests how to identify potential shallow-water snapper possies and then see them swimming, opening up exciting fishing possibilities! 

Seeing free-swimming snapper in their natural environment around the rocks, in the mangroves, or over the sea-grass flats is never an easy thing. 

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Snapper are naturally cautious creatures, and in clear shallow water they become even more cautious. 

To catch a glimpse without the use of berley you must be prepared to scrape along on your belly, stand as still as a heron, and/or blend in with the surrounding scenery. Dull coloured clothing is a good idea and Polaroids and a hat are essential.

Too often a wild snapper will detect your presence straight away, even though you’re making every effort not to move. The snapper departure that follows can be like a total disappearance. Sometimes you wonder if you saw anything at all. 

But when you do get it right, and the snapper carries on its life as if you don’t exist, you get a chance to watch snapper behaving in a natural manner doing things that snapper must do nearly every single day of their lives. It can be fascinating.

Here are some of the things you might observe:

Tailing

‘Tailing’ is a near-mythical fish-feeding action that’s talked about by fly fishers in hushed tones. It describes the moment a fish feeding in shallow water sticks its tail clear of the water. Fly fishers get wildly excited about this, for obvious reasons.

Unfortunately, it is not a common snapper phenomenon during daylight hours. It is also a phenomenon that doesn’t always repeat. Too often a broad red tail will stick half out of the water, wave around for a bit, then get pulled straight back under, never to be seen again. Once more you are left wondering, “Did I really see that?”

However, commit yourself to looking for tailing snapper and you will see them (especially on moonlit nights). It is very much a harbour-based phenomenon; there are many shallow water spots in the Waitemata and Kaipara Harbours where it has been regularly reported. Further north, at certain times of the year, tailing snapper are almost guaranteed. Be prepared, though, to be distracted by the many swirls of mullet, parore, piper and eagle ray. 

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Almost tailing

Better than tailing fish are the more subtle signs that tell you a snapper is very close by in shallow water: large swirls right in amongst the kelp along the weed lines in sheltered harbours; ‘smoky’ patches of water where the water is being disturbed over sea-grass beds (this is often produced by eagle rays, but snapper can be alongside); and the scatter and skitter of those ever-nervous piper (garfish).

I see piper as the best snapper indicators. They are extremely nervous baitfish and will jump and flick about at the slightest provocation. A snapper may even be sleeping, yet any piper filing past on the surface above will give little half-hearted leaps in response to its presence. It’s almost a sparrow and hawk situation, so if you can read it right, this can be a great way to pinpoint snapper location.

Suffice to say, always be on the lookout for any nervous activity amongst the piper schools – especially if it keeps occurring in one specific locality. 

Working the wash

This is fascinating, and if I had not seen it with my own eyes, I would have seriously doubted it occurred. Essentially, this involves snapper feeding below a kelp-edge ‘wash’. I have seen it whilst diving and also from the rocks. Typically the snapper chooses an area of vertical or near-vertical rock and cruises slowly beneath the kelp edge watching for small creatures being flushed from the kelp through wave action. The scenario seems to occur when the full kelp line is being exposed on each wave suck-back, so for gentle swell conditions it pays to watch for snapper around low tide. 

After witnessing this type of activity while fishing from the rocks, my eyes were really opened. Suddenly I understood why ‘wash-fishing’ with soft-plastics works so well. The snapper sit there, just a little bit below the swirling kelp. Any small creature that is unexpectedly displaced by the receding wave is quickly grabbed. To a wash-feeding snapper, a soft-plastic lure would be our equivalent of a gold bar dropping from the sky.

As a result, the kelp wash beneath any sort of steep rock face gets my immediate attention these days, and is always one of the first places I choose to cast.

Rock gut cruisers

These are snapper I have talked about before. In some of the most complicated deep-channelled rock jungles along the Northland coast you’ll find large snapper happily swimming around or just resting quietly. If the wave action is quiet and there are no other disturbances, it can be a very safe and food-rich environment for snapper to hang out in. The water can be very clear and the snapper easily visible.

The first big fish I saw like this took me completely by surprise. I had the sun shining right on me, but it completely failed to notice I was there. I watched in awe as this seven- or eight-kilo fish swam up narrow rock gutters and poked around in backwaters that were almost rockpools. I was rod free at the time, just going for a run and checking out a likely fishing location along the way. Needless to say, this spot became a favourite destination.

Flounder chasers

This is something I haven’t witnessed myself, but was described to me in great detail by Auckland Salt Fly Fish skipper Matt von Sturmer. It involved juvenile flounders and sole being chased across a Waitemata mud/sand flat by snapper, with the baby flounder up on the surface leaving a fizzing trail and the hotly pursuing snapper, often visible, behind! 

Matt experienced some great fishing when this flounder-bashing mud/sand flat snapper activity was going on. It provided wonderful opportunities for sight fishing with a fly rod in that harbour-flats environment, right in the heart of Auckland City. He could have had equal fun with a spin rod and light soft-plastic lure, or even a strong-actioned salmon spoon. This sort of fascinating snapper action and surface activity is worth looking out for on glassy mornings in those upper-harbour environments.

Look for those opportunities

Seeing a snapper living and feeding in a natural way, in its own natural environment, opens up all sorts of fishing opportunities. However, to do this requires a hunter’s skill and a hunter’s level of observation. This means long times beside the water just looking around and checking out what is going on. Eventually you will see free-swimming snapper and perhaps discover a fishing opportunity that you didn’t know exists. All from just watching that water carefully.

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   This article is reproduced with permission of   
New Zealand Fishing News

October 2015 - by Craig Worthington
Re-publishing elsewhere is prohibited

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