Fishing: Truly a summer of abundance

With water temperatures still hovering around 22C off both coasts the fishing remains explosive.

The Hauraki Gulf between Rakino Island and the Noises has been host to huge schools of anchovy and whitebait this week, with kahawai from juveniles to ocean-going feeding on them, snapper below and muttonbirds above, with gannets dive-bombing in squadrons.

It is an awesome sight and a sign that the snapper and kahawai are schooling up the bait, feeding heavily post-spawning and pre-cooling of the water for winter.

The bait fish are held in the same spot by predators - every time the predators go feeding the small fish ball up because of the protection of numbers and swim up to escape, so becoming available to the birds and thus their diving indicates where the fish are for anglers.

Kingfish have been splashing through this morass of food and on Monday we caught seven in the 15-22kg range, releasing four. Kahawai livebaits were caught using a simple silver cup-lure trolled with a paravane to take it below the surface.

The live-baits were hooked through the skin just behind the dorsal fin, or up through the lip. We use Black Magic 9/0 livebait hooks for the fish we want to keep because their hook-up rate is good, and a Wasabi 9/0 hapuku hook once we've got a fish each because the recurve hooks will always snag the fish in the corner of the mouth and they can be released without being taken from the water.

The hook should be well-exposed. The kings will take the bait head-first so scales do not jag in its throat. Often, they'll rise and follow, splash around the bait and drop away. Another attempt should be made to hook them - sometimes the higher the tide, the more aggressive they become.

The hook should be tied with a snood or similar knot on trace of at least 100 pound and a 100 pound snap swivel tied to attach to the mainline. On Monday I caught my first fish on 15kg then went down to 10, then 6kg, for two that were released.

Part of the secret to getting over-weight kings on light line is to draw the fish away from rocks, reefs, wharves, mooring buoys or other obstacles. The kingfish is undoubtedly the smartest fish around and will change direction, dive under the boat, go for the anchor warp or anything else it can find to break off.

Twice on Monday we had double strikes, with the fish looping each other. Line-on-line is a sure bust-off so the anglers have to loop too, bringing rod tips together to check who needs to climb over who.

Reels should be in free-spool but with lever drag set. The kings will mouth then swallow the bait and must be allowed time to get it down - too often anglers strike early, pulling the bait and hook from their mouth. Once clear of obstacles, strike hard. The instant that happens the fish will run hard. It is then a matter of playing smoothly - letting him run when he wants to because you can't stop him, then pumping the rod and winding the second he stops. A fish heading to the boat is easier to handle.

The kingfish has a caringoform body shape, which means its swimming power comes from lateral movement of the rear of its body, aided by thrust from the tail. The size and shape of the tail indicates the short-burst speeds it is capable of - only marlin and tuna have larger tails proportionately and they are the two fastest fish in the ocean.

For the same reason, a fish to be kept should be gaffed in the gill or under the mouth because it will come towards the angler; gaffed in the shoulder or back it will try and use thrust from the tail and rear end to thrash its way free and you do not want big fish going berserk with a large hook and a gaff point exposed.

At this time of year the kings will congregate at estuary mouths at high or low slack tide, around offshore reefs, near channel markers, under wharf pilings - anywhere where baitfish school. They will often feed only for an hour up to high, their interest turned off once the turn comes.

The Gulf is teeming with fish in the 1-6kg range. Jigging is a good option on the out-going tides. The new, elongated Zest jigs were working a treat on Monday, limit bags all round in about an hour.

It can be more effective fishing ahead of or behind working fish than in them and often a boat spearing into the frenzy will send the predators diving. But there is one surety - when the water is black with baitfish the big-fish bite-time will come - it's just a matter of waiting for tide, current or other factors to turn them on.