Big kingfish in abundance but snapper need plenty of coaxing

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Deep water fishing is firing at the moment, with large numbers of kingfish over deep pinnacles and reefs in the Hauraki Gulf.

Charter skipper Aaron Covavich, from Leigh, said he had never seen so many kingfish at the Moko Hinau Islands. "Sometimes the screen on the fish finder is blacked out with school of kings as you drift over the deep pins. Dropping speed jigs is murder. You hook up every time, and they are good fish, averaging 12 or 13kg with plenty over 20. We only keep one, and put the rest back."

But the snapper were shy, and straylining around the islands in the evening produced fish only if small cubes of bait were used with no sinkers. He said hapuku were also running well in 120m out the back of Great Barrier Island, although sharks were an unwelcome catch. Fishing around Little Barrier Island has been slow, but south of Kawau Island there are plenty of snapper.

Closer to Auckland the snapper fishing continues to improve, and Rangitoto and Sargents channels are fishing best in the evenings. There are good numbers of fish on the worm beds north of Rangitoto Island and also north of the Noises, while the bottom end of Waiheke Island is going well.

Workups 8km north of Gannet Rock can usually be found by looking for gannets, and anglers are having good success both anchoring and dropping berley or drifting with a sea anchor out.

A ledger rig with two recurve hooks set close to the bottom and small chunks of pilchards and squid combined is hard to beat. The key is not to use too large a bait, and to give the fish time to swallow it. Jerking on the rod as soon as a bite is felt will pull the bait away from the fish. The object is to make it easy for the snapper to eat it and take the hook.

Drifting with soft baits is also a productive way to fill the fish box and there is no messy bait, or an anchor to pull up. Use slow jigs on a long line behind the boat or soft plastics cast ahead worked alongside with hook fish. The biggest problems newcomers to lure fishing encounter are controlling the line, keeping in touch with the lure and hooking the fish when a bite is felt. With lures, the angler has to hook the fish, unlike bait where they will often hook themselves.

There are good numbers of snapper in the Firth of Thames and fishing both under the birds and in the mussel farms is going well.

On the west coast the fishing is better outside the Manukau Harbour, with the harbour proving fickle. Surfcasting from the rocks at the bottom of the hill on the southern side of the harbour entrance is producing kahawai, trevally and gurnard with the occasional snapper. This has long been a popular spot, but does involve a challenging walk down the hill carrying gear - and back up again with a load of fish.

Schools of mullet are running off the west coast beaches and in the Waikato River entrance at Port Waikato, and dragging a net produces fresh bait and fish for the smoker. Mullet fillets can be preserved as bait by scaling the fish, slicing off the fillets and putting pieces into a one-litre icecream container with sea salt added to each layer.

The salting process leaches large quantities of juice from the fillets and this can be tipped out, or removed by punching holes in the bottom of the container and sitting it inside another container to catch the liquid. Bait preserved this way will keep without refrigeration, which is ideal for camping or it can be returned to the garage after a fishing trip and reused with no deterioration like frozen bait which has been thawed and refrozen. Skipjack tuna and kahawai can be treated the same way. Salted bait is tougher than fresh bait and stays on the hook better.

Bay of Plenty inshore waters have improved by one degree and are close to 18C. Kingfish are running well at White Island, and a few albacore tuna are being taken by trolling lures while travelling to and from White and Whakatane.

There are good numbers of skipjack tuna reported from Tutukaka all the way up the coast, mainly out at the 200m line. Inside the Bay of Islands snapper are going well as the water has finally hit 18C, but it has also brought small mako sharks.

* More fishing action can be found on the internet television channel, www.FishnHunt.Tv.