Short bite times and snapper spawning

Howdy folks

If youve been out fishing lately and have found it a liitle tougher than you'd expect don't beat yourself up over it.The snapper are spawning and traditionally this will mean there is less time feeding and more time snogging so to speak.

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The key to a successful day out on the water at the moment is:
A. Take bait and burely and
B. Timing.

Bait and burley:
We use NZ caught pilchards because thats what NZ snapper like to eat. Pilchards are around in huge numbers for the snapper to feed on pretty much all year and it's not uncommon for snapper to "shadow" these large schools picking off any stragglers.

Squid is another good bait and we prefer to use the Lolago squid. It's the pale "blonde" squid that you can get at Topcatch and its comes in a few different size boxes. Seawave is a good brand if you're looking for it.

Skipjack. Its an oiley bait and the frames we use in the burely pot for that little extra scent in the trail.

Fresh baits are hard to go past and mackeral, slimey mackeral and kahawai all make great fresh baits. Again the frames are not wasted either and can go into your burely pot.

When it comes to burely and other than using the frames from the bait fish we tend to use the pilchard and bonito burely as it's about as oiley as you can get. From time to time we will use a salmon burely too as it is also very oiley but it can be expensive considering its only fish waste.

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We also tend to mix up the bait fishing (when drifting) with lure fishing. Lately the Jitterbugs have been the best of the lures especially in candy apple green, orange and my fave, pink with a silver skirt.

40, 60 and 80gr in those colours should see you right and if your after a few kahawai along with your snapper and even kingfish for that matter use the Legasea Jitterbug.

Timing is the other critcial component to your successful day out. Try to target the beginning of the day if you can. The thing about going early is that it gives you more options. Think about it. The sun is always rising and you will be fishing in daylight for hours but at th ened of tha day and when it's dark on the bottom the fish tend to go off the bite and into night mode for protection from predators and the bite normally is diminished dramatically. In saying that though that last hour of day light, the "Golden Hour" as we call it can produce some spectacular fishing and hence our evening trips are very popular.

"Where are you fishing at the moment?" is a common question when someone is making a booking. This time of year and as the fish have moved into the traditional spawning grounds of the Gulf it can be a numerous locations in a day where we fish for them.

The ground between Tiri and Kawau is close and sheltered in some breeze but lately we have found the fish size has dropped in here. Conversely, south of Tiri and between here and Coromandel the fish size has increased. Last week we pulled snapper to 8kgs from here. Also in the evenings and on the incoming tide we have had a good run between Gulf Harbour and Rakinao in 24m. Seems to be the incoming is best though...timing again.

Further out the kingfish have shown up in better numbers at Flat Rock, Anchorite and around Horn Rock but the traffic can be silly and the amount of boats reduces the chances a little. Try to be the first boat there in the morning and along with the jigs and topwater lures make sure you take some livies.We tend to get our biggest kingfish on livies and a simple 120lb trace about 2-3m long with a 2-4oz ball sinker above it will do the trick. Also...make sure you use a good hook matched to the size of the bait. I like to use the Owner live bait hooks but VMC also do a good one.