Geoff Thomas: Hooking the big ones inshore

Snapper up to 10kg have been taken in teh Bay of Islands. Photo / Supplied

This summer is already shaping up to be one of the best seasons for many years. Some of those who love to chase snapper are calling it the best fishing in memory, while others - perhaps with longer memories - are not so exuberant.

But there is no doubt that fishing in the harbours and inshore waters is booming, although like all fishing some days will always be better than others. Variable factors such as barometric pressure, wind direction, tides and moon phases see to that.

In the Bay of Islands the big fish have turned up, with snapper up to 10kg taken, while all the way up the coast school fish are common.

In general terms the fishing is better in shallow water than out deep, and it is common to find good-quality fish in places such as the edge of the Rangitoto Channel on both sides in only 11m of water. A common factor is either foul bottom, or patches of rough seabed with tube worms and sponges which are occasionally hooked and pulled up.

This is where the fish find food, and where the anglers find fish.

Rat kingfish are in plague proportions everywhere, and are feeding on small anchovies. The small bait fish mean soft-bait aficionados are finding very small lures the best option, changing the colour until the right combination is found.

Some large snapper are coming from the upper reaches of the Waitemata Harbour, and off Mahurangi and Kawau Island snapper to 7.5kg have been taken.

Fishing is also improving at last out wide and at Great Barrier Island the Katherine Bay area has been producing well. The Mercury group off Coromandel is also finally starting to fire after a slow start through January.

Although there are two popular methods of rigging baits for snapper when fishing inshore waters - the ledger rig and running rig - the latter is doing better this summer.

The ledger - or paternoster, which is the original English term - has a sinker at the bottom of a trace with two or more hooks on side loops above it. The other has a sinker above the swivel joining the trace with the main line, and as the line runs through the sinker fish can pull on the bait without the sinker's weight as a deterrent. The sinker can be either a round ball or a pyramid shape.

There is no doubt that the trace waving round in the current below the sinker is working far better this summer. The length of trace can vary, from half a metre to several metres, and generally the stronger the current the longer the trace.

What has changed in recent years is the use of recurved hooks on the end of the trace. These long-line style of hooks with the point turned in are designed for the fish to hook themselves, and are usually associated with ledger rigs and pre-tied flasher rigs. But two 6/0 recurve hooks fixed with snood knots at the end of the trace and spaced about 6cm apart are producing the goods, particularly when used with chunks of squid or fresh bait like mullet or yellowtail.

It makes sense to have two separate baits, so if one is torn off by small fish there is still another bait working for you. And it works even better if the fish are allowed to chew on the bait until hooked. If the angler reacts and strikes at every nibble, he is simply pulling the bait away from the fish when the object is to make it easy for the fish to eat it. In fact leaving the rod in a rod holder will probably result in more hook-ups.

In deep water the dynamics change and bigger baits on a ledger rig are more common, and when straylining and casting big baits into a reef a short trace with two hooks fixed in a large bait, such as a whole pilchard or yellowtail or squid, can be employed.

Game fishing is also heading for a bumper season, with striped and blue marlin reported all the way up the coast from Tauranga to Houhora, and more striped marlin than blues on the west coast. The exception is the eastern Bay of Plenty, where the game fish are still scarce. Small tuna like skipjack and albacore are being caught, but very few marlin seen.

At Mercury Bay the Hook is the hot area. Several yellowfin tuna have been weighed at Whitianga and the season's biggest marlin was taken this week. Whitianga angler Mick Elwood was fishing from Vern Hayden's boat, The Immigrant, when he hooked and boated a blue marlin weighing in at 393.8kg. In Northland waters a patch just south of Cape Brett is firing.

More fishing action can be found on Outdoors with Geoff, 5pm TV3, and on the new internet television channel FishnHunt.Tv.