The Warkworth Gamefish Club Honda 10kg Classic was exactly that this past weekend – classic. Conditions were far from pleasant with north east gales forecast but not actually turning up but for 1 night of wind and rain! There was a sea running from the north though and that kept a lot of the smaller boats in around Kawau and closer to home. Those of us that did brave the unsettled conditions did well around the Barriers. Snapper to 8kg were caught with The Charter Connection team taking out 7 of the top snapper prizes.

Fishing around Great Barrier's inshore reefs was a little on the slow side for us and we pretty much abandoned the idea of picking up any real decent fish form in close and fished in tough conditions further out and in deeper water.

It paid off and I now see that it was worthwhile putting up with the seas and the wind to get the results. Using big baits on the drift was the go and fishing live baits on the bottom picked up the bigger fish.

A few Kingfish showed up in the inshore spots we fished but most were small and released. In fact, I don’t think a single kingfish was weighed in during the comp.

Back down this end of the gulf has been fishing well too and the middle gulf has been outstanding this autumn. Drifting and anchoring with a burley trail going are the ways to fish out here and although the windy conditions along with a lot of recent rain has cooled the water down a fair bit, it is still fishing well.

Large schools of bait are present and some kahawai are spewing these bait fish out as they come aboard. The bird life out here has been prolific too and is a good place to start a drift when you find a work up. Chrome jigs did the damage the other day whilst on the drift out here – match the hatch eh!

Around Kawau and Maori Rock are going well and some good fish have come from the area over the past few weeks. There are snapper moving onto the reefs up here now and places like Flat Rock and Takatu can go off around this time of year. I would say the early morning shot would be the go with a good burley trail going. Fresh baits and live baits should get the attention you’d be after.

Anchorite has a few fish on it now as does some of the deeper foul around the Gulf and will be worth a shot if the weather lets you out that far. Hopefully the next few days will stay flat as I wouldn’t mind giving it a decent shot there after seeing what came from some of our spots further out. Often drifting the edges of the reef and the patches of rubble will produce the better fish rather than plonking the anchor on the rock itself.

Little Barrier has been fishing OK too with the southern end of the island producing fish from out of the shallows especially when it is a bit rough further out. We had a 2-3 hour session in there the other day that produced 5kg snapper, good trevally and small kingfish from 4 metres of water.

You could see the bottom and watch the trevs milling about a few metres behind the boat in the burley trail. The burely is the key to making this sort of location fish well and being able to cast baits back into the trail. The area we fished was at the bottom of one of the many water falls around the island and these water falls wash feed into the inshore reefs for the fish to feed on.

Haven’t been to the Mokes for a while so I can’t really comment on what is happening up there at the moment but I would presume that the place is fishing well. It is normally this time of year that these deeper offshore islands start to fire up and no doubt there will be a few ‘puka showing up around the place and off the top of Great Barrier too.

Drifting these deeper reefs can produce some HUGE snapper and the odd winter kingfish too. Big baits with only enough weight to get you down to the reefs is the caper and often the fish will hit the baits really hard on the way down. Stay tuned as we have a couple of overnighters coming up and was hoping to get out here for those.

Like everyone else, we have been pottering around with the soft plastics with good results and these baits are getting a lot of press so I won’t harp on about it although we are organizing a few soft plastic bait trips over the next few months out to the Barriers. Nuclear Chicken – odd name for bait, but it works well. It seems that the Berkley baits are the pick of them and are the ones we are having the most success with.

Spot you out there. We are only a phone call away or you can flick us an email at deepsea@clear.net.nz

 

From A Charter Connection...

Report type: Saltwater

Report date: 06 June 06

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