What an amazing run of weather we have had over February. The hot summer days are just rolling on with some fabulous fishing to go with it.
THE INNER GULF The inner gulf has been fishing extremely well at the moment, with good catches of snapper being had in all the channels. The fish are biting hard but are smallish. Most of the fish are being taken on stray line rigs in the shallows with sanma and mullet the preferred baits. Drifting fishing has also worked well in the channels, with a mustad long red flasher rig working best for us the moment.
As a very special Valentines present for my wife, i took her snapper fishing in the gulf (nice work Terry - ed). We had a great evening fishing of Otahuhu point were we drank a glass of wine or two had dinner and proceeded to catch a lovely feed of pan sized snapper for dinner the next night.
The large schools of kahawai that are about at the moment are a great sight, and they are feeding hard on the surface on small smelt. They can be difficult to catch when feeding on smelt, either a small smelt fly or the white end of a bic pen ink tube are ideal to catch them with.
With so many kahawha about at the moment the king fish have being going off. Crusoe rock has had some good sized schools of kings on it , unfortunately some of them are on the small side, but there are some bigger models also floating about the foul, patience will reward anglers who wait for the bigger fish.
Shag rock also has some serious big king fish on it at the moment. We were decimated by a very big fish there on Tuesday evening , we did land two others around the 40lb mark later in the evening. Best rig here seems to be slow trolling a bridle rigged kawahai on the edge of the drop off.
OUTER GULF The deep of shore fouls around Horn rock and Anchorite are starting to fish a lot better. After all the pressure of the holiday period the bigger fish have started to come out of hiding. early morning seems to be producing the best bite , and this area should only improve as autumn approaches. Lots of berley and big baits have produced some good catches of snapper, some well into the double figure mark, best rig is a floating big bait, with a fresh is best approach (jack macks or small kawahai ).
OFF SHORE The game season is well under way now . Plenty of bill fish are biting along both coasts at the moment. Best bite areas seem to Manukau south to Raglan , good numbers of stripeys have shown up and are feeding hard, top lures seem to be zuker 5.5 black purple and black magic fugly squid. These are two very popular lures and are again doing the damage.
Further north on the west side the fishing has been a bit sporadic, however there is plenty of bait in places along the Kaipara and up to the Hokianga, so it wont be long till it goes crazy and the fish give anglers a busy time. Down the east coast things have been a bit slow up around the cape , only the odd fish here and there, from stevenson island south down to Tauranga the stripeys have been giving most boats some action in one form or another.
Big baits balls are all along the coats now and some amazing water . Mahi mahi are being caught regally and the odd yellow fin are keeping a lot occupied who are not having any luck on the bill fish front. We are also having an amazing run on big blue marlin , good numbers of blues are being weighed around the 200kg mark, any many boats coming of second best when encounting much larger specimens.
Best colours for stripeys seem to be Lumo, black purple , perto lero, and real evil, the blues are eating almost any thing but hawain and green evil are two of the more popular colours.
Till next time go hard, when the weather is great & the fish are biting, turn the computer of and get out there and do it.
Terry Williams-King
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