Well it certainly has slowed down out there. Even though it's not hard to find the gannets and dolphins, and great snapper sign on the sounder, the fishing has been tough this week.

The fish are concentrating about 4nm north of Gannet Rock but you need to hit the bite time to do well. We believe this is due to a combination of neap tides and an unfavourable lunar phase. Yesterday we fished over the last of the incoming and start of the outgoing – working very hard to end up with a respectable bin as fish started biting later in the arvo. The work up activity was very much 'boom and bust' with dolphins splitting of small patches of bait and gannets diving hard for a brief moment before moving onto another patch. If you can't find sustained gannet action, try to drift the general area with small lures worked slowly and you should pick up snapper, gurnard and if you're lucky John Dory.

The bite times will be early morning and late evening over the weekend so we'd recommend aligning your trip with these until the fishing picks up again.

On a very positive note, spring has sprung and the water out there has warmed up by almost a degree in the past two weeks. Here's hoping for another cracker spring work up season synonymous with our wonderful Hauraki Gulf fishery!

Captain Nick Jones & Captain George Bourke

Wave Dancer & Hauraki Express