Fishing: This harbour is made for kayak-fishers

Mangonui Harbour, that idyllic haven tucked away on the east coast four hours north of Auckland, is the ideal spot for kayak-fishers, especially for learners.

For more experienced kayakers who want to go further out, Mangonui Village and district offer an excellent base for expeditions outside the harbour around the rocky Doubtless Bay coasts, which are internationally renowned for quality fishing.

As more and more anglers are drawn to this increasingly popular method, it is not hard to imagine Mangonui undergoing something of a boom for kayakers. The area provides all a visiting fisher's needs from accommodation to a range of cafes and restaurants, an excellent tackle shop at Coopers Beach, an unbeatable $20 Sunday smorgasbord at Taipa, and the best fish-and-chip shop in the world built over the harbour on a pier at Mangonui.

The harbour is a perfect example of quality surpassing quantity. It is small, easily accessible, rich in fish life, and picturesquely set between bush-clad hills and rocky cliffs at the heads and mudflats and mangroves at the tail.

Biggest pluses are the harbour's shelter from winds, and easy navigation. Launching, say, from the rocky little beach at Mill Bay, or the dinghy-ramp near the Mangonui wharf, you can be out in the main channel in five minutes, across the other side in under 10 minutes, and out at the heads in 15 minutes.

Stay away from the Mill Bay boat-ramp, which gets very busy on holiday weekends and tempers fray when non-ticketholders such as kayakers clutter the place. The ramp is for trailer-boaties who pay a lot for their craft and gear and have limited launching spots. A kayaker can launch anywhere, so give the boaties a fair go.

As with most harbours, the snapper come in to Mangonui along the channel on the incoming tide and spread out to chase schools of baitfish or forage for shellfish on the mudflats.

The weekend I was there, snapper, trevalli and kahawai were feeding voraciously - hooked kahawai were jumping strongly and bouncing off the bow of the kayak - and kingfish were ploughing along the main channel and past the wharf where they made hairs stand up on the neck of every kid with a rod.

You can target kingfish by anchoring in the channel and jigging, or rigging a live kahawai or a mackerel caught from the wharf, where they are usually plentiful. If a kingfish takes the bait and swims off with it, get your anchor in quickly before striking, then prepare to be towed.

You need a rod long enough so the taut line stretches over the bow and not along the side. When the kingfish turns left, pull the rod over to the right and the bow of the kayak will swing left to follow the fish, or vice-versa, and in this zigzag fashion you'll be towed until the fish tires.

Out at the heads, be prepared - you stand just as good a chance of picking up a 9kg snapper as a 1kg. You'll be in 10m-12m of water and the rip is strong, so you'll need at least 20m of anchor line.

There are many deep, close-in foul areas around the Doubtless Bay coasts where the boaties can't go, but the kayak can nudge its way in to where giant snapper hang out.

As I arrived back at the beach after a three-hour trip local woman Yvonne Gee stopped for a chat and made my day. She asked where I was from and had I caught anything? I told her I was from Auckland, and tipped out a sack of snapper, trevalli and superb kahawai at her feet.

"My God!" she said. "You caught all those from the kayak? My God! Some of the guys around here, they go way out all day in their fast boats and come back with absolutely nothing." Well, I guess it takes an Aucklander ...