Fishing Reports

Spring – Updated!

Wow! What a great start to the latest snapper season. After reading through the Espresso reports from around this time over the past few years it seems like October and November are delivering exactly what they are supposed to, better and better fishing every day on the lead up to Christmas. Although the weather is also following its usual and somewhat frustrating rollercoaster ride, the frequency of fishable days is increasing along with the snapper in most areas. The outer, middle and inner gulf are all fairly consistent now with no really big no fish zones, channels like Tiri, Rakino and western Rangitoto have some very healthy front runners swimming around looking for action, of the breeding and feeding kind. Other channels like Motuhie and Sergeants have been noticeably void of snapper at times. The upper firth of Thames is filling up with very good fish.

Close Encounters

Workups - my personal favourite and specialty, have been of two distinct types lately – the fast moving kahawai based ones with no dolphins or whales – yes there are some snapper to be had underneath, but few and far between compared to the real deal i.e. when mammals round up and hold the bait in a defined area. The scene with aquatic mammals is when the mad rush of action fishing is at its peak – and to me one of the truly amazing fishing spectacles. Each and every time holding everyone, novice and experienced anglers in awe of the mighty power of nature, and the fishing is intense. The only downsides of workup fishing are seriously aching arms and being strafed by gannet droppings while they’re smashing into the water just metres away! It’s a powerful natural experience, something never to tire of. The gannet ‘tracers’ on the back of my shirt tells the story of really being right in amongst it all.

Less and less of these slippery ‘couta customers thankfully although there are still quite a few lurking out in wider grounds by Anchorite unfortunately.

Fortunately however the number of kingfish is heartening - also tailing the middle gulf baitschools, and hugging marker buoys around the inner harbor in good numbers that I’ve seen, they’re there and worth a crack –  throw a surface popper on the up-current side when passing, just to see, make your first couple of casts good though, they can get wary fast.

Brydes whales are positioned around the gulf, as well as big Orca, a few sharks, a seal or two – making a day out in the gulf an interesting one even if the snapper aren’t biting that much. And of course lots of smiling common dolphins and a few of the bigger bottle nose who aren’t mates with the commons, you won’t see them hanging out together. Lots of those BIG jellyfish floating around, good things to steer clear of.

Sometimes even with good fish sign on the sounder, they just say no! That’s the breaks, but mostly the fishing is very good. The most successful rig lately has been the Catch Pilchard on the 3oz Jolly Roger (with the screw-in coil to hold the soft plastic) – dropped hard to the bottom in 35-45m, a slow retrieval up 2m, then drop back down again. Probably because of the number of Pilchard schools around the gulf getting hounded by dolphins, gannets, kahawai and pretty much everything really, the snapper seem to be predisposed to pilchards real or imitation, good to see. Simple and highly effective.

Catch Patch - how to
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Like Ian Cameron with nice a Snapper caught on, you guessed it the Catch Pilchard and Jolly Roger.