Fishing Reports

Although not a big fan of bottom fishing I have to admit that in the last couple of weeks I have nearly been converted. Yes snapper are baitfish but are actually a lot of fun to catch. Those of you who fish out of the Manukau will know there are two months when the snapper fishing out over the bar is nothing short of spectacular. Those months are October and November. So if you didn’t know you have already missed the first month but the fishing should be just as great this month as it was last.

Although the water is that horrible green colour and cold just getting to 17degrees the place is crawling with life. There is the usual scourge of barracuda and small sharks but this is not really a problem if you can get your limit without too much trouble. Fish up to 10kg are not uncommon with an undersized fish very rare indeed. There are loads of birds, dolphins and all sorts of fish about. One boat recently returned having caught 7 species.

The usual West Coast rig is a grunty ledger outfit with 2-3 hooks 6/0-8/0 and some decent bait. Pilchards are good but so is that skippy and albie you put in the freezer at the end of last year’s Game season. The stand out though has been fresh Kahawai fillet skinned and straight on the hook. Get it down the bottom and hang on.

So where do you go? It doesn’t seem to matter with good catches coming from as close as 40m all the way out past 60m don’t be fooled into thinking you need to go deep with one boat over the weekend landing a great 6.5kg fish from 40m. They only caught one barracuda and one small shark oh and 29 other great Snapper. Throw back those fish that are under 30cm honestly a 27cm fish is a joke and so is anything close. At the end of the day when your ice box is full of big beautiful fish you will be glad you chucked the small ones back.