Harbour

Wellington Harbour has been giving up some excellent tarakihi and big numbers of red cod, with a few snapper and kingfish still around. Trevally have not arrived in any sort of numbers yet, however there have been a few 1.5kg to 2kg fish caught.

One of the best types of rigs to catch trevally with is a two hook dropper rig on 40lb trace line with strips of squid or any really oily fish bait. This set up will also give you a good chance to catch a tarakihi as well.

West, East and South Coast Fishing

All three coasts have been fishing well for kahawai, red cod and spotted sharks with the largest fish we have heard of being a 17.5kg spotted shark. Now is a good time to target some big shark species like 7 Gills, and tope sharks.

These are great fun on a surf rod and remember to get quick photo and release these awsome fish to fight another day if you don’t intend to eat them. Wrap up warm, and get out there and get fishing, there are still a lot of great fish to catch during the winter months.

Boat Fishing

With the water temperature getting cooler there are signs of winter fish species on the way. There are still snapper and trevally being caught in the Harbour and on the West Coast, but they are getting harder to catch. Spiny dog fish, small sharks and red cod are showing up in ever increasing numbers. For the snapper fishos there are some big fish still out there.

It is now time to start changing your style of fishing with winter fishing starting to take hold. Our staple fish here in Wellington are blue cod, red cod, tarakihi, warehou, bluenose, groper and kahawai and these species will start to make up most of our catch. Start to make the most of what is available this time of year by changing your tactics for these species, unlike snapper fishing tarakihi require a much smaller hook and much smaller baits, I.e. squid or trevally cut into strips works well.

Berley will help improve your catch but keep pots off the sea floor 4 – 5 metres to get the best results. Do the same with your bait; wind 4 – 5 metres up from the sea floor. Blue cod are suckers for berley so don’t be surprised if you catch good blue cod when you are tarakihi fishing using berley.

Groper fishing has been hard this year with the weather making it difficult to get out to those off shore reef and ledges, and the same can be said for bluenose fishing as well. Check out the 5 Mile Hot Spot on our web site’s home page to learn more about fishing this great reef in Cook Strait.

This time of year the bluenose fishing can be very good, you just have to time your fishing around the weather. A good rig to try is a three hook ledger rig with size 12-16 recurve hooks and whole squids as bait. The best bluenose fishing is generally when 0 – 5 knot winds, are predicted. Over the winter fish to look forward to annoying are ‘Who’s (warehou) and trumpeter.

Wrap up warm and don’t let the weather keep you from getting out there and doing it, still great fishing to be had!

Steve-o