Great day weather wise on the harbour yesterday
Got a bit wet coming back in thou
Some action but slower - lost a horse snap
Flesh still in good nick
Cheers
CN

That’s a tank!

Hi all, on holiday this week and got lucky with the weather, I've been surfing Matakana Island every morning and have fished the entrance twice on the way home.
Wednesday 5 drifts with softbaits and 5 snapper, yesterday a lot slower but got 2, lost a good one to a shark, can't bring the good ones up quick enough. Two other people I talked to yesterday lost fish to sharks.
Big tides with biig current made it challenging.
Some of the fish I caught on Wednesday were spraying milt around my dinghy so maybe still some spawning going on.

Harbour fishing is it CN, let us know how you get on, good luck and hope those naughty sharks stay away

So Greg and CN are you guys soft baiting when you are drifting at the entrance?  I have fished the entrance several times  both at change of light and tide and have done poorly.  I have been anchored up mind you.  is any tide better than the other?

Hi Barafat, I'm drifting the entrance Mount end using sofrbaits for about 300m at the most narrow point, average depth about 20m.
I only do this on incoming as entrance gets ****ty on outgoing, small tides a lot easier.
Its a busy place so week days a lot quieter especially when outside of harbour too rough to fish,evenings also a good time.

Hi Barafat, if you line up the red and white triangle beacons looking back toward sulphur point ramp, then anchor level with the first red marker going out the entrance then time it each side of the tide change you should get a feed this time of the year.
I prefer incoming, there is usually a few boats doing this evertday when weather allows.
Check shipping schedules on the harbour board website as you have to move for ships.
About 2.00pm today is ideal as tides are small and north wind forecast so wind and tide together and looks like one ship departing at 1.30pm.
Everyone I see fishing there uses heavy sinker with 5+ metres of trace which is a common harbour set up.
I'm planning on fishing there afrter 3.00pm today when my grandson gets out of school, drift fishing you can fish more current.

I went outside the harbour last Friday from Kaituna Cut, nice conditions so went to Motiti.
Lots of current from the east with slow but steady fishing for me. Ended up with 6 snapper in reasonable condition with one of them spraying out milt.
As conditions were really nice I jigged for kingis on a reef between Motiti and Schooner which has become quite popular for jigging since most other reefs a reserve now.
I'm finding now most of my Kingfish get sharked as with more jigging going on they seem to learn its an easy meal.
On Friday I could see the shark on my sounder following me as I drifted, I tried both ends of the reef and saw them on my sounder often, when I hooked a decent king it was taken in under 10 seconds so gave up.