My Account
We’ve had some windy conditions to deal with and with water temperatures up for the time of year we may have to endure even more. On the plus side though, Whangaparaoa Bay is full of bait schools along with kahawai tearing through them with the snapper shadowing all of the action. Bait fishing tends to attract the “piranhas” (baby snapper) and you may have to go 20:1 to keep a worthy snapper. For this reason we have chosen to use lures and soft baits on the drift in here. The depth and drift speed dictate what lures we use but generally speaking it’s about 18-24m deep where we have been getting the best fish.
With this in mind the 60gr Sliders and Jitterbugs on a 20lb fluorocarbon trace seem to work best. A 3/8th jig head is usually enough to get a soft bait down too. When it comes to colours just about everything is working but lumo, orange, pink and greens are our go to colours in the lures and the ever successful ZMan Bruised Banana, pink paddle tails and the little Motor Oil are working really well too.
The 40m area south of Kawau Island has been pretty consistent and offers good shelter in a northerly wind There is lots of options in the area including inside Kawau Island around the Iris Shoal, out from Martins Bay, and the area south of Challenger Island. Have a good look around the reef which is indicated by the disturbed water flow above it for snapper, kingfish, kahawai, trevally and john dory all of which can be caught here.
It can be a fast drift and during a big tide and it means repeating the drift again and again or anchoring and feeding baits back to the structure. Our best baits here are fresh jack mackerel stray lined back with about 2oz of lead. The same lure and soft bait tactics we would use in Whangaparaoa Bay also work around the Kawau inshore areas.
A good tide flow rushes up and down the coast out from Takatu, Omaha and Cape Rodney which in turn makes for easy bottom feeding for the snapper. At present the place is riddled with skipjack (as is most of the Gulf) and although there is plenty of surface activity we are finding our best fish away from the skittering birds and feeding tuna.
Out deeper, long drifts in 50-55m are producing the goods and every now and then a good kingfish will take a lure or drifted bait too. I’ve always favoured the end of the outgoing tide for snapper fishing in the Gulf and in many cases this will correspond with the lunar bite time.
The area about five miles south of Little Barrier was pretty good recently, although there are lots of “rat kingfish’ on 5 Mile Reef. A trick here is to be there at sunrise and live bait the big ones. The snapper were on the bite pretty much everywhere around the reefs out here but we got plagued by the little ones when directly over the reefs. Fish the edges and look a little further away and out on the sand for the better ones. Skippies are everywhere out here too and they will take a soft bait or little jig cast ahead of them and quickly retrieved.
Treat the small fish with respect and wind them in slowly, use a wet hand to handle them and release them gently. One day it may be back as ‘a fish of a lifetime’.
This is Damo’s final fishing column. Hibiscus Matters thanks him for his contributions.
