Well what a month we have had with huge pilchard workups both close into the land and out wide. The workups closer to the land have been all along the East Coast Bays, hard up against the inner islands (Noises, Rakino, Ahaaha rocks etc) and down the bottom end of Waiheke and across at the Happy Jacks.

The workups out wide have been over at Coromandel around the Fantail Bay and sunken barge area, 2nm-6nm north of Gannet rock and in the middle between Waiheke and Coromandel. Whilst it is still winter, this surely feels like spring fishing! Here is more detailed information from the areas we have fished.

East Coast Bays, The Noises and inner Islands
The pilchards have been pushed in hard against the land in these area by large KY schools. When this happens the fishing can be intense as the bait has nowhere to escape and the mammals are not actually required to herd up the bait (the KY do a fine job).

There was a good workup right off Takapuna boat ramp the other day with gannets raining in and dolphins amongst it. There have been mainly pan sized snapper under these workups and big KY, but also some rather large winter kingfish!

We had an epic day in close to the Noises where Lisa Santambrogio managed to land a 115cm kingfish in 10mtrs of water on 4kg gear (but that is another story). We have been using both Inchinku and Kabura style jigs around 100-140gr with great success even in this shallow water!

Another area with some very intense workups over the last couple of weeks in close to the land has been the bottom end of Waiheke Island. Again we have been using the 100-140gr jigs in 10 – 30mtrs of water in close with great success and this area has been producing larger snapper up to 79cm.

We are finding that the bigger snappers are up the water column in these intense workups trying to get closer to the bait and hit the lures like big KY or Kingfish! This is some of the most exhilarating fishing we have had ever! Please be considerate of others when fishing these workups and don’t race into them at high speed, but come in at a slow speed and fish the edges where the current is moving all the burly (what we call the exhaust).

This way both you and others will catch more and bigger fish. Also don’t race off to the next workup if you are only getting KY, as the snapper often come on after at the end part of the drift when there is less KY present. Once you find the snapper come back on your drift line and fish it again rather than racing off.

Coromandel – Fantail Bay area
This is one of my favourites places for big snapper and there always seems to be heaps of bait in this area. Even if the workups are not happening, if you find the bait and wait until bite time you will be rewarded for your patience! The below picture shows why (check out the dark patch off the western side of the top of Coromandel).

Here are some of the snapper we have caught with no workups but heaps of bait on the sounder and maybe a 2-3 hour wait until the bite comes on. The green and red lures seem to be nabbing the bigger snapper during the day while the orange colour comes into its own on dusk/late afternoon. The current and wind can be quite strong here and we use 2 parachute type drogues to slow our drift down. Most of the bigger fish seem to be more attracted to and hit the lures when they are straight up and down (or at least within a 45 degree arc).

Next Month
Well to be honest I don’t know quite what to expect in the next month but that is actually pretty cool as anything can happen (the last couple of month have been quite different to previous years with more bait and snapper and Kingfish around). The El Niño is slowly abating and there is a good chance La Niña will kick in (Nov - Jan).

My prediction is that the great fishing will continue with the warmer weather coming and the real spring workups will start hitting us earlier this year (## August – October 2016 temperatures are very likely (65-70% chance) to be above average in all regions of the country). Hopefully the winds will keep down allowing us to get out and drift through the abundant bait and we won’t have to range too far to find them!
Source - https://www.niwa.co.nz/climate/sco/seasonal-climate-outlook-august-october-2016
Anyway however it goes I look forward to seeing you out there enjoying our magical Hauraki Gulf!

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Cheers
Capt Nik (Snap)
 
“Nothing ventured nothing gained”