Wow, some solid fish in the harbour, well done guys. There appear to be a lot of trevs this year

Nice work Bananas.

how big were your snaps Alex? Our biggest probably only 3kg but baits were hi about every 30 seconds at the most. Jigs ans sfties didn't really work too well which was unusual. A mate got a 6.8kg snap in 14m today.

Nice going guys.

I did a short strayline mission at the local. It was tough at first, but the change of light made a difference.

Nice to see some quality snaps in the shallows. My rod and reel had a good workout for the first time in months.

I think we need to regroup and get a new strategy going Skoti. I had great plans of targeting kahawai, snapper, trevally and gurnard. The northern end of the bar was cranking enough for me not to want to go there. The snapper fishing was epic, pretty much as good as it gets with a trawler load of 2 to 3kg snapper coming on board. We took it slow and easy on them with one hook rigs but it was one of those days where a one hour limit catch was entirely possible. Nothing big enough to help with the Clevedon vs Counties challenge though!

If the trawlers were at 35 then that's where the 40 to 50cm fish will be! Must have been magic out there today.

We got out on Monday over the high tide at lunchtime in the harbour. Was HOT... summer is definitely on its way in. Water temp was up in the 19s and it was positively tropical after the weekend of rain.
Fishing was slow and steady, with nothing spectacular landed. Kept 4 pannies and a couple small kahawai we used for bait.  Caught a decent ray that was a mission to get in to the boat. When it was close we could see a 60+cm kingfish cruising underneath it right up to the boat! Hooked a good mako (1.5m) to finish the day off.
Was magic out there.

Hey BB,
We only ever really fish the change of tide, which might be ~1hr before low/high --> during slack water (which can be measured in seconds on some days!) --> ~1hr after low/high. Might stretch that window an hr or so on the days that have lower tidal range, but I wont bother to go out if I can't fish over a change of tide.
We pretty much head to the same spot every trip, and end up fishing in 4-6m of water on the edge of the Papakura channel. Seems to work well for us with how we fish. Never use burley, I normally strayline a whole pilchard or piece of fresh kahawai, another rod with a gurnard rig and squid on, and a couple softbait rods ready to go.

That mako that we caught end of last trip was probably ~1hr after the high tide, and I'd pulled the pick and was drifting out, so was in ~12m of water heading into the channel nearer to the #2 mark.

seahunter wrote: Hey BB, We only ever really fish the change of tide, which might be ~1hr before low/high --> during slack water (which can be measured in seconds on some days!) --> ~1hr after low/high. Might stretch that window an hr or so on the days that have lower tidal range, but I wont bother to go out if I can't fish over a change of tide

Interesting mate
On the banks when the rip slows down, I usually go out into the main channel & fish along tide lines, holes & back eddys that you can clearly see on the surface & sometimes it pays off... which is pretty much around your above time slot with the tides
But I do prefer fishing the last 2.5hrs before tide change & 30mins afterwards then bail out



I did Jenkins bay this morning on the banks. Anchored at the bottom of the drop off into the main channel using frozen mackerel.... a few throwbacks & then 1 for the bin at 46cm within the first 30mins.... I thought, this is alright, but it pretty much stopped after that with the odd bite & bait thieves.... plenty of that weed getting caught in the gear, which doesn't help aye

Plenty of sign started coming thru, including a few arches but no more action for me at that spot
About 90mins before tide change I went into the main channel to a structure spot I marked on the way out, plenty of good sign on it & around it an hr before tide change.... then that nor wester kicked in with a nasty short chop with the odd white cap & that was it for my day out, I had to retreat back to shore
2 keepers for the dinner plate & released 2 bloody stingrays which was a bit of fun, of which one of them I got on my 4kg mono setup

Thanks BB that confirmed Manukau harbour not yet. another 4 weeks away??

Hard to say, if that nor wester did not kick in, I reckon it may have ended up being a good sesh as I still had an hrs plus fishing to go... the amount of sign that came thru in that last hr, but who knows aye
Usually around 20deg it starts to get more consistent, today it was 21.8, so your 4 weeks away could be right now, onwards