Creative thinking and a good game plan gets results

I am the first to say that no two years – or even days – are the same, and the last two weeks prove my point. Fishing for me is more than a passion in that I study and take in all the changes while on the water. Over time I’ve built up a massive database and history in the old brain box to draw on when fishing is tough.

Despite the bloody awful moon phase over the last week, the changes I have seen are like never before. Never have I been out to fish on three spots where I can honestly say I have always caught fish, yet the sea floor was absolutely devoid of any fish sign.

My Furuno TZ touch will pick up any sign even when the fish are well spread out and hard down on the seafloor, yet after some time looking I only had seen maybe six marks of single fish.

Obviously with little other options you have to believe in yourself and call on the database to put a few fish in the bin. No sinkers allow the bait to cover a wider area, offering little resistance when a fish takes the bait. No sinkers also allows you to cast baits in three directions with little chance of tangles, keeping the rod tips low so that you will detect and see even the smallest movement in the lines.

Covering my bases I fish three ways, baiting up one bait with super tough paua scraps, another with a pilchard cut in half, as well as a butterflied pilchard. The key is to constantly watch the rod tip and don’t react too quickly; tiny insignificant taps and movement are not necessarily meaning small fish, hence the reason for a tough paua bait which small fish will struggle to get off the hook.  Softer half-pilchard baits get munched quickly whereas the bigger butterflied pilchards get chewed more aggressively. No matter what the bite’s like, the action of fish feeding draws fish into your target zone - you just have to make a game plan and stick it out.

Long story short, despite the lack of fish showing in the two hours I fished, I got busted off three times, lost one snapper in the 6kg mark at the side of the boat, and brought back four snapper in the 42-47cm range.

Back at the ramp, 90 percent of boats coming in had either got skunked or had a few small snapper on board. Phoning around a few good fishing mates, they all had the same story to tell. Again, there have been changes taking place where in the last three years mamo disappeared, now huge schools of juveniles are turning up in the berley trail along with jack macks and English mackerel, and hopefully there will be kingfish coming in to feed on them.

Generally speaking, from Tiri across the worm beds there are a lot more schools of kahawai feeding on anchovies, yet they are all small in size. The snapper are a bit hard to find and well spread out, so set a game plan to anchor up, berley and strayline over the run of the tide.

The Rangitoto, Motuihe and Rakino channels are not showing a lot of fish, and you are better off fishing the shallower water off the sides of the channel as the snapper, when coming in, tend to move up out of the current in shallower water.

Administration Bay is my go-to spot at this time of the year as there are massive schools of anchovies, small kahawai are rarking up the feed on the surface and being shallow the snapper are in numbers below.  what does surprise me is the snapper are all in the 32-38cm range with few bigger fish around like previous years.  

Out around the Noises, the best and biggest snapper are being caught in the late afternoon, close in around the rocks.

The reports I get from the bottom end of Waiheke are the southern end of Hooks Bay and on the sand on the western side of Pakatoa are producing good numbers of snapper, again in the 32-42cm range.

If it’s bigger fish you want to target, set a game plan to fish areas you normally would not think to, as the bigger fish, once spawned, head into more shallow areas to feed up on shellfish and crabs. Look at your chart and see that there is a massive area of flat, featureless sand out from and to the east of Musick Point. On the inside of Rangitoto right up to Meola reef is the same but you have to have patience, plenty of berley and ground bait and sit the whole tide out. I have always caught good fish off St Heliers and Chesterman beaches in only 3-4 metres of water but they are always way bigger fish than out in the channels or on the worm beds.

- Bruce Duncan