Cold mornings, showers and short days - is mid winter really worth chasing Snapper......
It's that time of year when the days are short, the bite can be slow, the cold sets in and you think to yourself is it really worth getting up and putting your tootsies in the cold water or sitting in the cold South - SW winds. The thought of early morning launches coming home late and worst of all spending a lot of money to come home fish-less at times becomes conflicting for your passion of fishing - is it time to hang up the rods and reels for a couple of months?
Going out wide to those deeper reefs, deeper water to fish and maybe even a chance of coming across those elusive winter workups can be worth it if they fire for you. Most times winter time for me means fishing the shallows and big berley storms, whether it be off the rocks or in the little boat - it's a lot cheaper and at most times rewarding.
With a 15-20knt South to SW wind forecast the North side of Whangaparoa was ideal for us in the little FC, rocky bays and shallow weed lines are perfect to berley up a storm and draw Snapper out of the kelp then strayline your baits back to them. This kind of fishing is really going back to basics (old school) and once again that saying comes in "Fish your feet first"
As stated above sometimes that fishing can be slow but it's still worth that shot for a feed of fresh for tea. I know those magic times for shallow water winter fishing is a couple hours before light and just after or a couple hours just before dark. The fish like to mooch the shallows in relative safety and low light is that perfect time.
We decided to launch a little latter in hope we would pull a couple of fish in the shallows through the morning and relied on that late arvo to fire more for us - I do prefer those late arvo's more so. Launching just on high tide Pea managed to keep his tootsies out of the cold water. The plan was to head up to the front end of Whanga's to have a play around on a few shallow reefs - one thing I like to do is just catch a few fish then move on once the smaller fish catch wind of your berley.
We anchored in a nice little bay around 7mtrs, there was a nice swell rolling which I also like as it stirs everything up. I set the berley and we flicked out our first baits which took a while to get noticed, but the more we fished and pumped the berley the more the fish came on the bite. There were a few nice hits between the 35-40cm fish but we were unable to make them stick so far, there was plenty of fish here for the taking so we were able to release those pesky little ones. Berley really is the key with this type of fishing and taking off our little ball sinkers our floating baits were being smashed within seconds. We decided to do a little bit of a shift, I like to move once you know the place has been over run with smaller fish, you can chance a nice one if you have those harder baits like strips of Kahawai or cubes of Mac's.
Once the smaller fish really take over I like to shift, a lot of times you'll get those better fish on the first few casts so starting all over again in another spot is sometimes a good idea. We did this a couple times, picking a few fish around that 37/38 - 40cm then moved on. The late arvo is where you really want to pick a spot to finish on and get the berley pumping. Around 2.30 we pulled the pick and moved back to the shallows around 5mtrs, I found a spot where the rough thinned out and anchored right on the change of structure. Pumping the berley one last time we flicked out our baits, we had a pick of fresh Kahawai, pillie or squid but moving to a new spot we always like to start with pillies.
Our first few baits sat for awhile, it felt fishy and as the berley filleted down the column our first little bites started. The first few fish were small around 30cm which we released, each bait used was getting grabbed quicker than the previous. Moving to slabs of Kahawai I let the smaller fish attach it and waited for those better grabs, my rod buckled over and I was hooked up to a lot better fish. This is the late arvo fishing I had been waiting for, it wasn't a big fish but with most around that 38-40cm this felt a lot better. After a few mins I could see a lot more red / white coming up this time, Pea stood at the ready with the net as we didn't want to lose fish of the day at the boat.
A few more winds and up came a nice Snap around 60cm and as soon as Pea netted it for me he turned to see his rod in the shape of a horse shoe - Pea was hooked up to another nice fish. You really gotta love that late arvo shallow straylining sesh when some nice fish turn up.
We managed a couple nice fish which most were released apart from one that was gut hooked and a few around that 37-45cm, with a nice bin of winter Snaps and a couple Kahawai and with the sun set topping the day off for us we called it a day.
Tight lines
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