Fishing Reports

Departing the Okahu Bay on high tide we headed straight out to the ‘Worm beds’ on the 25m – 30m mark halfway between Tiri and Rakino to target Snapper. After a quiet start we spotted a work-up just south of Tiri. Hundreds of Gannets diving into a slow moving school of bait fish. Working around the edges of the workup we dropped a variety of set-ups for some interesting results. 

Soft baiting, a Slam #5 Minnow Pumpkin Seed accounted for the first of our many 35cm – 45cm Snapper. Next on the menu was a Gulp! 6” Grub, Pink Shine. Both were set up on deep water worm hook rigs. After having 2 smaller gauge worm hooks broken, one falling apart as we landed the fish, we changed to Big Red Tackle 5/0 1oz Deep Water Rigs. The larger hooks also made it easier to rig the larger body Slams. 

Slow Jigging, a 30gram Bay Rubber, Hot Pink/Gold combined with a thin strip of Squid on those remarkably strong hooks accounted for the biggest fish of the day. 

On the other side of the boat Dave from Top Catch Westhaven was stray lining, 1oz sinker straight on top of the hooks to get below the Kahawai. Fresh large Pillies almost keeping up with lures! 

Tania from Top Catch Half Moon Bay was also out the same day off the back of the Ahaaha Rocks in 30m. They were into bigger fish than we were, with a majority caught on Slam’s. Tania also mentioned that due to the body size of the Slams they were easier to rig on larger worm hooks.

An action packed 2 hours of solid fishing. Look out for Gannets smashing into the work-ups or keep moving until you locate the schools of snapper feeding on the worms, 20m – 30m.

Report provided by Craig Robinson - Top Catch Glen Innes.

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