Much like the weather, the fishing is starting to really heat up in the Gulf. We’ve been finding booming workups and hot fishing on every trip over the past two weeks.  

Dolphins and gannets have been working a sizeable area primarily between Anchorite Rock and the top of the Coromandel Penisular, but there has been more scattered action found closer to the city too, around the top of the Firth and north of Gannet Rock/Waiheke.  

When you find the birds bombing, the snapper usually aren’t picky. However, we’ve been using the Daiwa Pirate inchiku jigs in 150g to get the bigger specimens hooked up. Orange seems to be a hot colour at the moment for all lures – not surprising, as this hue is normally the go-to to start the day with!  

The water temp is now trending upwards quickly which means kingfish will be moving into the Gulf in good numbers soon – an exciting prospect for keen topwater anglers who like to hit the reefs before the crack of dawn to experience the excitement of surface yellowtail action. These incoming kings also feast on the pilchards around the workups, so they’ll start to be a regular occurrence on our snapper trips before we turn our full attention to kingi livebaiting come the end of the year.  

Closer inshore, the snapper softbaiting is slowly picking up and there are plenty of large squid around for the keen egi anglers. There’s also been a revival in the number of gurnard around the inshore waters of the Gulf and these should stick around for the next month, so there are plenty of options out there! 

Go well out there! 

George Bourke 

Hauraki Express Charters 

https://haurakiexpress.co.nz/