Fishing: Hot start to the season as snapper fishing takes off

Kingfish have turned up on reefs around Maria Rock. Photo / Supplied

What a magnificent start to the summer season, with the holiday weekend delivering perfect conditions and anglers out on the water taking advantage of it from offshore to the lakes.

There are plenty of fish around from the Bay of Islands to the Bay of Plenty and the west coast. Snapper are on fire in most areas, but the Bay of Islands has been slow to start.

Close to Auckland they are being caught in good numbers on the worm beds – where some of the bigger fish are reported – between Rangitoto Island and Tirititi Matangi Island, and at the bottom end of Waiheke Island where the fish are in close.

Straylining with berley over the shallow reefs has been hot, and the pinnacles out in the middle of the Firth of Thames are also fishing well.

The reef at Maria Rock is holding kingfish, and some good specimens have been taken in the past week. Live baits like mackerel fished under a balloon, or slow trolling a live kahawai, will attract these magnificent fish, then it is a question of coaxing the hooked king away from the reef to deeper water before it wraps the line around a rock.

The channels at Crusoe Rock have started fishing well, and squid is the top bait. Most of the snapper in close are males preparing for spawning next month.

They fill up on squid which helps their metabolism produce the milt which fertilises the females' eggs.

Snapper are serial spawners, which means they may spawn several times over the summer, and the activity is sparked by water temperature. When it reaches 18C the mating starts, and takes place in water about 20 metres deep which is why the Hauraki Gulf is such a good environment for the fish.

It has huge areas of flat seabed of 20-30 metres deep. The spawning ritual sees large numbers of fish rise to the surface at night as they come together in a phenomenon which has been rarely witnessed.

Fishing around Little Barrier Island has also improved and hapuka are being hooked on the outside of Great Barrier Island at about 130 metres. Work-ups are attracting boats everywhere from the Coromandel township side of the Firth of Thames to Kawau Island.

When fishing in this sort of activity it is usually not hard to hook fish. You can drop metal jigs, soft plastics or baits. The problem can be getting through the fast moving surface feeders like kahawai and mackerel and down to the more sought-after snapper closer to the bottom.

Barracouta are still around, a sign that water temperature has some way to go as these silver ''snakes'' prefer cool water and head for the offshore depths over summer. Bright jigs and swivels will attract the sharp-fanged 'couta and make tackle shops smile.

People have different ways of dealing with the problem. Some use black swivels or no swivels and heavy sinkers to speed the terminal bits through the mid-water.

Other tricks are securing bait and sinker together in a ball wrapped in bathroom tissue hoping it will get to the seabed before the tissue disintegrates and releases the gear.

Another solution is to use light wire trace and keep a bunch of 'couta for bait and berley.

The inchuku jig, which is a metal jig with a plastic squid-type lure with small assist hooks on the end, are proving popular with more anglers. While metal jigs and soft baits are worked continuously with the rod, the inchukus are dropped to the bottom and then barely moved.

The line is wound in very slowly and when a fish bites, the action does not change. Unlike soft plastics, a strike is not needed. Just continuing to wind the line will secure the hook-up, and they catch fish.

Snapper up to 15 kilos have been caught like this in the past year while fishing work-ups in the Firth. At Tauranga people are waiting for fish to move into the harbour, but there are kingfish over the offshore reefs and snapper in 15-20 metres of water off the beaches and still plenty of gurnard on the sand. Tauranga Harbour is reported also to be full of whitebait.

Fishing off beaches like Waihi Beach is also picking up, with torpedoes producing well from the shore and setting a long-line on 20 metres of water is working better than bait fishing with rods.

The pins off the Aldermen Islands are reported to be holding large numbers of kingfish, with some specimens over the 30kg mark.

Freshwater
Trout fishing in the Rotorua lakes was excellent over the weekend, and early morning harling is best on the lakes. Now that three flies are allowed for jigging, this approach can also be adopted when harling. It is a question of how to rig the flies, and it can be as simple as having a fly resting above a small swivel, or on short droppers tied to the main trace.

A toby or Tasmanian devil can be put on the end with two flies ahead of it.

• Bite times
Bite times are 2.50am and 3.15pm tomorrow and 3.45am and 4.10pm on Sunday.

Tip of the week

When looking for fish that are feeding over the sand and there are no obvious indicators like birds or dolphins, the sea bed is the key. Look for contour lines on the chart and little nooks and crannies or small patches of foul on the bottom.

These are places which will hold fish and can be checked by drifting if the wind is not too strong. You can also anchor up and drop berley and baits. More fishing action can be found at www.GTtackle.co.nz