Wash fishing using softbaits

While in the past, I had always loved wash fishing, I started to find myself becoming bored with it. But in the past 18 months, my passionn for this kind of fishing has been rikindled! I have found myself going back and getting satisfaction from my first love, the good old snapper (that’s ‘snapper’ not ‘slapper’ if you were wondering where I was going with this!).

Nineteen years ago I started my guiding career and for the first few years it was all about chasing snapper in the Hauraki Gulf. After many years of ‘filling the bin’ for my clients with one of the most popular and targeted fish in New Zealand I fell out of love with a species that once brought me so much pleasure.

But in the last 18 months I have started getting itchy feet and found myself with the urge and hunger to go after these tough-fighting creatures once again. No, I have not gone to counselling, and no, I am not on medication. Nor I am not going through a mid-life crisis.

So what is it that rekindled my love for the good old snapper? Pretty simple really: wash fishing!

Picture this: stunning scenery, blue water rolling onto a point or cliff face and a ton of baitfish stacked up in the current. You are drifting down a point, you eye up an area against the rocks where the water is milky from surges rolling up and down a crack or rock face. In your mind you know that’s a great place for a large snapper to be feeding – its got camouflage so it’s a great place for a predator to hang out and wait for its prey.

You line up your cast, it’s perfect and lands right on the edge of that surging milky water and… BANG! Only moments after your soft-bait hits the water you have line peeling off your reel at an alarming rate. You are hooked up to what seems like a turbo-charged snapper!

In the last 18 months during our kingfish charters we have been putting our anglers into some great snapper fishing while live baiting for kingfish in the shallow areas.

I am now not sure what excites me more – trying to drag a monster kingfish out of the shallows or the technical aspect of casting soft-baits in the wash area for snapper.

I now find myself wanting to pick up a rod and start casting into these shallow areas for big reds on a daily basis and the excitement levels are back to what they used to be many, many years ago.

Even for an inexperienced angler it does not take long to get the casts landing in the right spot, and once anglers have gained confidence in knowing how much drag pressure can really be put on the gear to pull a big snapper away from the kelp or rocks, it’s not long before a soft-baiting virgin is catching great fish. They quickly get the bug for wash fishing and shallow water snapper fishing.

One of the great things about shallow water and wash snapper fishing is that you know the fish can be released in good condition because they are not being dragged up from depths that can do internal damage to their organs.

In deeper water we usually stop fishing once we have caught enough for the table, but the shallow water fishing enables us to fish all day and enjoy our surroundings.

These rocky and unforgiving areas can hold very big fish and it’s not uncommon to hook into kingfish that feed in the same areas the snapper live in. For wash fishing, we beef up the gear a little more than normal, as we need to put the brakes on the fish as quickly as we can.

This new-found passion has seen my family and I purchase a new boat specifically designed for this style of fishing. This new Extreme Boats 605 Centre Console will be fitted with a Minn Kota trolling motor.

These motors are a huge asset for this style of fishing, allowing us to control our drift and speed when working areas around the coastline and they are perfect for stealthy for fishing the shallows.

The full walk-around aspect of the centre console will make it easy for casting and fighting fish. I am so excited to be able to get back out there with my family in the weekends to fish the ‘wash areas’ and we are looking forward to travelling around New Zealand and finding new areas in-close to fish.

We waste far too much time in our lives searching for something bigger or better, and in the process neglect what is in front of. Wash fishing has opened my eyes to our beautiful country and given me a new-found love for our favourite fish, the snapper!

OUR GO-TO WASH FISHING SETUPS ARE RIGGED THE FOLLOWING WAY:

• Rod: 7-8ft soft-bait rod in the 12-20lb (5-10kg) rating, a rod with a sensitive tip to work the bait and heaps of grunt down low to put the brakes on a snapper that’s on a direct course to the rocks.

• Braid: 15lb (7kg) braid for the rocky areas; normally fishing over the sand we will drop down to 10lb (4-5kg) braid.

• Leader: we run a heavy leader due to the fact we are fishing near kelp and rock. I prefer 25lb (12kg) fluorocarbon in areas where there is good wash and bigger fish and 20lb (9.1kg) if there’s not a lot of water movement or there are smaller fish around.

• Jig heads: These should be as light as possible. This will depend on the size of the soft-bait, the speed of the current, wind speed and drift characteristics. The idea is to get the lure to drop as naturally as possible with plenty of hang time. I prefer the Lefty’s loop knot as it gives the jig head more natural movement on the drop.

• Soft-baits: I personally like small soft-baits in the 4 to 5-inch size range, preferably with paddle or curly tails. The bait does not have far to drop in these shallow rocky areas, so you want the most impact out of the small bait. I find a small bait with an active tail gets a very quick bite and positive hookup in the shallow water.

• Reels: I like the 4000 size because it gives us higher drag settings and faster line retrieval to help with the hook up and in pulling the fish out into deeper water.