Sporadic Fishing action

As we approach the end of August, I expect the fishing to become a little more consistent than it has been over the last few weeks.

A weekend ago I took some local advice and headed into the deeper waters from the Waipu golf course to Langs beach in the 35-40m mark in the early morning. We absolutely smashed the snapper in a short time, only using the microjigs, with lots of fish around 40-45cm mark before the bite slowed. For some reason, the softbaits have been a bit slow in Bream Bay over recent weeks. 

Other boats in the same area were experiencing a slow bite too, indicated by the fact they were all moving around searching for snapper. With the wind dying off, I headed down towards the McGregor Rock area and some foul where I have found previous success with a couple of decent size fish over 10lb on softbaits, but it was slow as. We headed back out to the 40-metre ship anchorage area for another crack and picked up a few pannies and some kahawai. 

Finding some sign on the sounder and dropping down a 100g jig with a slow wind up from the bottom, we landed some nice eating-size snapper to put on ice, along with a couple of kahawai destined to make raw fish for me and the kids.

There have been some reports from other anglers about the odd gannet workup around Sail Rock and Langs Beach areas. In September, hopefully we see a bit more workup action like we saw last year.
Looking at posts on the popular Bream Bay Fishing & Northland Fishing Community Facebook page, many were experiencing similarly patchy results as us, with the odd, good catch among them. Included have been some reasonable kingfish.

The Hen and Chicks have had some good reports of snapper around Tara Reef using bait and berley, and the rock fishing has been awesome up along the coast with one of Northland’s top fishos Shiloh Rumbal from Hunting & Fishing and local Charlie Allen landing some big moochers off the rocks.
Berkley fisherman Tom Harley reports that the fishing has been very sporadic out in the bay recently but fishing around the workup exhausts has yield good results. He also got lucky flicking softbaits around at the Chicks the other day landing and releasing a 99cm kingfish.
A few tips:
•    If lure fishing out deep, try upping the weight of the jighead or the slider, and try going down a size in the softbait tails you are using as this creates less drag and enables you to stay in touch with the hit zone longer. 
•    Try changing lure colours and styles to find out what’s working on the day.
•    Use your sounder to find the sign.
Stay safe out there, whanau.

Nga Mihi,
Shannon Neho