Gurnard thread

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Post Options Post Options   Likes (1) Likes(1)   Quote smudge Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 04 Jul 2020 at 7:57pm
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About a dozen gurnard today, we mostly snapper fished but once we moved to a gurnard spot we got into them. Should have moved earlier. Snapper is 35cm
Best gurnard fisherman in my street
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Post Options Post Options   Likes (0) Likes(0)   Quote CrayZfish Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 04 Jul 2020 at 8:41pm
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looks like there's plenty carrots coming in. They look in good nick too. Smudge any comp winners in your lot?
Why choose either diving or fishing when you can do both. Besides crayfish tail is very good bait!!
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Post Options Post Options   Likes (0) Likes(0)   Quote Perchase Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 01 Aug 2020 at 3:20pm
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Gurnard are a bit of a mainstay down in Nelson inshore waters over winter, I tend to only get out for the odd half day mid week and have been doing ok on the drift, wth a ledger rig , home tied with orange flash and 3/0 red black magic recurves, in the rodholder, alongside one of kavemans orange curly tail kaburas , which seems to get the horses, while I softbait actually casting ahead with new penny grubs. It keeps me busy and they all do ok, in shallow the softbait seems to clean up. It's a fine pastime, maybe not action packed but nice to be on the water. Record so far sizewise was 53 cm in Okiwi bay anchored up on a live piper on the bottom obviously, about ten years ago, and at the time was almost too distraught by the demise of my precious livebait to appreciate my awesome gurnard., curious to know if anyone has caught any on livies? ( mine was a total fluke, I was after snapper of course)
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Post Options Post Options   Likes (0) Likes(0)   Quote smudge Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 01 Aug 2020 at 3:46pm
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That's cool Perchase. 53cm is a solid gurnard. I've never caught one on a live bait but the bigger ones often have small fish such as juvenile flounder andstargazers in their gut. Maybe a small live bait is a good option!
Best gurnard fisherman in my street
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Post Options Post Options   Likes (3) Likes(3)   Quote nzfishwhisperer Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 01 Aug 2020 at 5:01pm
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Harvesting our east coast bays carrot patch.

The plan was a catch up carrot sesh with Pea in the little FC off the bays, it's a great time of year to try and track down a few of these succulent morsels. The snapper thin out and the carrots move in, over the years they have taken up residence off the bays over winter. When we first started catching them a few years ago we would get 2-3 to every one snap, now that we target them a lot more when the snapper have thinned right out it's pretty much a 100% catch rate. It's pretty cool to head out and target a certain fish and only catch that species and nothing else. With a high around just after 10.00 we launched around 9.00, the plan was to fish that last hour of the tide and into the slack. I do like fishing them on the slack but you get them right through the tides.

Arriving at our spot and with the wind not to strong we decided to start with a few drifts using softies and micro jigs, it can be a lot of fun catching them on the light gear. Pea was running a little micro jig and I was on a soft bait, part of the plan was to trial a few different techniques to see what works best when targeting them. I do prefer the good old bait and berley and really think you can't beat it. We caught a couple on our first couple of drifts then dropped a few over the next 2-3 drifts so the micro jig and softies worked well even though we had to work a little more for them - it is fun drifting and hooking up..

After a few more drifts and no takes we changed over to drifting with baits but as the tide slackened the wind picked up and it got a little to difficult to fish on the drift, it was time to drop the pick and berley and let the fish come to us. Although a lot of fisho's hate the mess of bait and berley I still think that old school fishing is one of the best ways to target fish if you are wanting to land good numbers. Don't get me wrong I do love a bit of softbaiting and micro/slow jigging but only when it is the time to do so. This time of year in the shallows or just off shore bait and berley comes into it's own.

Setting the berley we dropped our first baits, cubed pillie is one of my favorite ways to catch them - just the right size to fit in their mouths. It normally takes a good 10-15mins before you start to get any inquires, we normally get a few little nibbles with the odd hook up or miss then 30-40mins in they can really come on the bite as the berley kicks in. Our first few carrots were of small size but at least we started getting a few, but as stated above the bites came on more and more and soon we were getting bites within seconds of the bait hitting the bottom. I stuck with the strayline rig but Pea was starting to get hammed on the Ocean Assassin flasher rig which he likes to use when targeting gurnard.

Our east coast carrots are a little different to the west in the way of size, we can get some goodies but off the bays they probably average around 35-40cm. We kept the ones reaching over the 30cm and soon we had a few more hitting the bin around the 32cm. There were plenty there for the taking and after adding 5-6 to the ones we got on the drift we had a big front come through and drag us off our spot. It gets a little annoying especial when they are on the bite and after resetting a few times it went pretty quite for us, we managed a few more once we stayed put and better ones around the 42cm.

With the wind up and a good 10-12 carrots in the bin we called it a day - our carrot plan came together perfectly and it was a great catch up gurnard sesh with Pea.

Tight lines



















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Post Options Post Options   Likes (0) Likes(0)   Quote Muppet Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 01 Aug 2020 at 5:55pm
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Nice FW want to crack 50cm out there. I reckon there is a bulldog amongst them.
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Post Options Post Options   Likes (0) Likes(0)   Quote Transformations Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 01 Aug 2020 at 9:08pm
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Good little bunch of carrots there Jase. Your plans really do come together nicely😉
We don't know what we don't need till we've got it
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Post Options Post Options   Likes (0) Likes(0)   Quote nzfishwhisperer Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 05 Aug 2020 at 4:40pm
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Targeting carrots off the bays......

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Post Options Post Options   Likes (0) Likes(0)   Quote nzfishwhisperer Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 10 Aug 2020 at 7:49pm
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Targeting west coast carrots in the little FC430......


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Post Options Post Options   Likes (0) Likes(0)   Quote Wanda_Ra Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 10 Aug 2020 at 11:56pm
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Originally posted by The Tamure Kid The Tamure Kid wrote:


I suspect Tamaki Strait may hold decent numbers of gurnard in the winter in the same way the 10-15m flats off East Coast Bays do - as Shane and the kayak guys up that way have got on to. Similar habitat and bottom with crabs, crustaceans etc.


40 years ago we often caught gurnard in the panmure basin. 
A few weeks back we caught a small one off music point, they might be back in the estuary once more ??
If you think you are too small to make a difference,try sleeping with a mosquito in your tent.
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Post Options Post Options   Likes (0) Likes(0)   Quote cosmo Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 15 Aug 2020 at 7:00pm
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ok so trick is how do i sneak into clarks beach from the south lol thinking tuakau
i just want to go fishing..........amd ignore all my adult problems
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