Not good for the snapper fishing, but for those of us that chase the gurnard, I find a good cold winter with a good couple of frosts really gets the gurnards on the Kaipara on the bite. What's your favourite rig and bait?

I'm not sold on the frost thing but no doubt a good cold spell gets them into the harbours. I agree with Kitno on his choice of baits but I have a couple of variations on that. In the Manukau, skipjack and kahawai that has been in the freezer a tad too long work really well. Mullet is also a top bait, fresh or frozen. On the west coast I catch heaps of gurnard on inchiku jigs and squid baits yet neither of those work well for me in the harbour.

I put a special effort into tying my rigs. I use light gear, usually 6lb mainline with a 20lb trace. I use recurve hooks and while any hook will work I consider the best hook to be a 4/0 Mustad Demon circle hook to be the best. Am currently using De Coro hooks (thanks Uncle) and have found then pretty good despite their heavy (read very strong) wire.

I'm a little fussy about tying the rig and use a two hook dropper with the lower hook sitting on the bottom with the sinker, which by the way is usually a 4oz long skinny sinker - not like I'm nutty or anything...

I hook the baits through once only and when I drop the line down I keep it fairly taut once it hits the bottom.

Gurnard have a distinctive bite that little sharks try to imitate nd the trick is not to strike those bites. wait for the third or fourth nod then lift and wind! It's yours.

The best commercial rig I have used is a terakihi terror. I just shorten the distance from the first hook to the sinker.

I pretty much always use two rods when gurnard fishing and one will be a strayline. I fish the droppers/flasher directly under the boat.

There's no one thing that really works for me, it's really a combination of all those things. If you fancy yourself as a gurnard fisherman Kandrew you should fish our Grunter Hunter comp on June 11. $2000 first prize

No expert mate, just picked up a few good tricks from the kaipara locals. Darren that used to fish out there used to give us all a few good tips over a couple of coldies at the club.

Yep I might come up fish your comp, my uncle Len Duff used to own the Huia motor camp for years. So as a young fella I spent plenty of time fishing that end of the Manukau as well as hanging around his home brew shed.

I use size 14 long line hooks and I tie my own flasher onto them, blue and green with silver seems to work best for me. I tie my own droppers and I like the first hook about 100mm up from the sinker then a gap of about 250mm to the next hook. The loops for the hooks are 100mm long so the hooks don't get tangled.

Lightly salted skippy and mullet for me, small strips hooked once through the end. 15 to 20 bl leader and i fish 3kg braid on a very light rod. I fish shallow on the kaipara 2 to 4 mtrs just off the guts up on the banks. 2 rods with 4 ounch teardrop sinker, cast out the back. Into the rod hod holder and let the gurnard catch themselves. I don't strike with braid or you'll pull the bait out of their mouths.

Having said all of above, I've also caught heaps on soft baits, pumpkin seed grubs with a jig head just light enough to get to the bottom, cast out and retrieved very slowly. Don't strike just keep winding slowly until their hooked. I caught a few in the firth this way at Easter using bursed banana Zman curly tails.

I feel like I have arrived at a very similar recipe!

Barrie wrote: Why the long skinny sinkers? I use bombs for mine I try to use 4/0 or 5/0 but have caught just as many on 7/0 I also fish ledgers but I also flick a rod 20 odd meters out the back with a running sinker and a 600 (aprox) trace off it. This often gets gurnard but also snaps as the ledgers create their own smelly trail.

OK, I guess I use the bombs as they are easier to get. Boat shows coming up.

I only use circle hooks for Gurnard for sure

Been a lot of fresh water flowing into the kaipara this year with all this lovely weather Barry. Don't know if this has any thing to do with it but I've also think the tides or currents seem to be a lot smaller this season. I've had a lot of days when there's just been bugger all current even at half tide the lines have been straight down. Been a heap of small snapper around as well, need a bit of current to bring the bigger fish on. Maybe the gurnard haven't been able to complete with all the small snapper.

On the Manukau i use a ledger rig . First hook about 6 inches above the sinker and second hook about 15-18 inches above that. Simple loops about 6" long with hook looped on and a small chunk of bait hooked through once only. Surprising the number of gurnard caught on the top hook.
Yet when targeting snapper on a running rig also catch gurnard on that. Have caught some of the biggest in mid summer.

As for bait. I learned to catch Gurnard in Wellington when young.

 Popular bait then was a lump of gravy beef and that caught plenty of gurnard. I also used that  bait with great success. So guess they eat almost anything.
Jack Mackeral work well for me  in the Manukau,along with Kahawai and Skipjack and mullet.
Down in Welly biggest two i caught were four and a half pound . Not sure how that would translate into length. But they were big.

We find the best thing for catching gurnard down here is Katch 1 Fish Kandy burley. (Tuna burley....has not been in the shop for a while....don't know if it is even still available?) It lasts really well and certainly drags in the fish. Doesn't matter too much what rig we have but really like Bonito bait.

Yummy , and I like the light rigs and ledgers too .. manukau great place to learn how to catch em.. and some big suckers as well. Then apply knowlege elsewhere as they frequent lots of places east side as well and if anything increasingly prevalent. And people seldom target them this side.