Hauraki Gulf Update - Joe Dennehy

  • General Saltwater, Auckland and The Hauraki Gulf

We have had a really good summer weather wise, the fishing in Coromandel and the gulf certainly took quite a while to come right.

The snapper fishing here and throughout the gulf takes a while to settle after the heavy boat traffic over Christmas and New Year making the fishing tough. Eventually it came right in mid February and for 5 months since then it has been good. The water temperature was still 20 degrees in mid May, but with the southerlies and crap weather we have since then, last weekend the water temp was down to 17 degrees when I went out, although we caught plenty of reasonable fish.

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However now after a another strong southerly blow, the water temperature will have dropped to 16 degrees, and the gulf snapper are on the move. They are moving out from the shallows to deeper water, as they do every year where the temperature stays much the same all year round at 16 degrees.

This is the time of year when large schools of snapper are moving in schools, so if you have a good sounder and you find those schools, then stop dead above them using reverse gear as necessary, and send your baits, softbaits, or slowjigs right down to them and you will hook a few before your boat drifts away, and/or the school moves on.

On Tuesday I had my first class at a fishing academy I am running, so I had to be in Auckland Tuesday night and my gear was in Coromandel. I headed up to Coromandel Monday afternoon, and as luck would have it, Tuesday morning it was fine, clear, and still. There was no water at Oamaru bay boat ramp, until 10.30 so I really only had an hour or so before I had to head to Auckland, so I didn’t go far.

I went to the end of the first farm out of Oamaru bay and drifted along with the incoming tide, and got a few nibbles which turned into a decent bite and the fish was off, just a scrappy little 32cm snapper which I kept, as I didn’t know how many I would get and was keen to take some fish to the family.

Then a few more casts I hooked a good fish, which towed my FC390 around luckily away from the ropes in the farm and after a few good runs and 5 minutes or so I netted a lovely 58cm snapper woo hoo. Now the poor 32cm snapper looked ridiculous but I was happy to have two snapper aboard.

I got two more 36 and 39cm before 11.15 so came back quite happy with myself, I was fishing in 17 metres of water so the fish have not cleared out completely.

They never all move at once but for the rest of this month they will be moving and by July as usual they will be gone out to deeper water, in winter I have to travel about 10 ks from shore instead of two.

Good luck,

Joe Dennehy

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