Fishing tips from an expert

I recently encountered John Tana of Ohaeawai fishing for mackerel off the Waitangi wharf. Had filled a twenty-litre bucket with live fish. Placing a few large rocks in the bottom of the perforated bucket, he secured it to a wharf pile to retrieve later for a kingfish hunt where the plague of Bronze Whalers around Red Head snaffled all but the few rat kingfish caught.

John is one of the few who catch most of the fish. He incorporates modern fishing technology with ancestral clues about tides, moon and weather. But mostly, he fishes when and where he can

On a recent trip, where success was reported as modest, he spent the afternoon drifting around over middle ground fouls with Trevor Browne of Kerikeri. Using two-hook ledger rigs in 40-50m depths, mullet slabs did more damage than fresh skipjack tuna baits (bonito). John puts this down to the tougher mullet surviving the attentions of the sweep and blue maomao on the way to the bottom, where snapper were in residence. The sounder was used to find snapper signs with the best fish approaching 5kg. The weather was overcast.

On the second trip, John launched his inflatable at Opito Bay and fished near Cocked Hat Island. This time, in depths of 6-8m, the snapper fishing was some of the hottest of recent times. Best action was at the bottom of the ebbing tide. Again, conditions were grey and as the weather worsened, he was forced to retreat into Opito Bay, where in amongst the moored boats, he caught his best fish of about 6kg. Whole squid on floating lines did the damage on this occasion.

Like John, Jonathan Fulton of Mahinepua values fresh jack mackerel for bait. A recent trip to the Whangaroa enabled Jonathan to snag about 50litres of these little beauties.

A few days later, with wife Mandy and baby son Shine, they found themselves north of Flat Island in about 24m. The time was 7.00am. With floating lines, they used whole jacks rigged with two hooks and a half -hitch around the tail for bait. They made it home by 10.00am. On the bottom of their tinny lay five fat snapper ranging from 2-8kg. 

A week later, an evening trip between 7.00 and 9.00pm was the time, an extra few metres of depth off Flat Island was the place. The limit this time lay on the floor of the tinny. Included several fish between 5 and 7kg. The rising full moon seemed to trigger a feeding frenzy.

Next evening, the moon was at its zenith and the weather was snotty. But an hour of awesome fishing with neighbours produced half a dozen great snapper, the best weighing 8kg. And home before dark this time.

Tight lines!