Hauraki Gulf Fishing Report 151118

  • General Saltwater, Auckland and The Hauraki Gulf

After the relatively sluggish bite of the previous week and breeding potentially underway, now it was a toss of the coin to see which way this week would go, for better or for worse? Well the results are in, and it's game on!

The good solid fishing action has mostly moved west-ward this week, producing some great fish. Workup fishing is still in full swing, with plenty of trailer boats seen out around the wildlife, even during the week - they probably called into work with the "fishing flu".

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For those afflicted or not, either way, the fishing has been excellent this week, and it looks set to continue. The tidal current does slow down a lot, so expect shorter bite times but with potentially calmer seas, and when the fish are biting they are simply ferocious.

If you're keen on eliminating both undersized and smaller pannies and aiming for the bigger 50cm+ snapper, a slight change in approach has been working wonders. When the bite is slow, and you're using kaburas, Lil' Squidwings lures or soft baits it's easy to forget when the bite comes on and you catch several fish in quick succession – great!

The theory of big baits for big fish has been working well lately, particularly with the bigger more aggressive male snapper right now - the 15-20lb+ thumpers. A highly erratic/big action lure seems to get these bigger fish to strike before the smaller ones, modified inchiku lures (e.g. Betabug) with extreme action, as well as of the more simple big lures – like a 200gm or 500gm Squidwing generally used for big bluenose and hapuku!

A number of 18-22lb snapper have been caught on these lures this week alone. With soft-baits, try avoiding scent as it can attract smaller fish to bite. Now is the time to think big, big baits = big fish.

The Tiri channel and either side of the cable zone out from Tiri has seen some good action, a lot more than eastern areas over the past several days, right out well past Flat Rock - this should change soon.

North of Anchorite rock has been good steady drift fishing with good sized snapper in the area.

The kingfish seemed to have taken a couple of days off – hopefully, that means they are now back on the hunt for prey, good news for having them bite and not just follow jigs and topwater lures.

Enjoy your fishing, Espresso

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