Fishing: Your chance to catch scallops now here, while snapper get set to spawn

The scallop fishing season opened yesterday. Photo / Geoff Thomas

The scallop season opened yesterday and keen scallopers will be heading out to check out the condition of the early season delicacies.

Scallops are found in harbours and on sand or mud bottoms out to about 50m deep.

Scallops start life as a free-swimming embryo, but after about 48 hours, they attach themselves to a rock or structure on the bottom, where they live until reaching a few millimetres in size when they drop to the seabed. Like all bivalves, they are filter feeders, sitting on or just under the sand with their shells slightly open, straining water to extract plankton. Scallops grow quickly and reach 60mm across in about a year, when they start breeding.

For most of the country, the scallop season opened on July 15, but in the top half of the North Island, it started yesterday and closes on March 31. The delay is intended to give the delicate shellfish more time to regain condition after the cold winter. It also allows more fishing through summer, as the traditional season ends on February 14, while in the north, it now runs until March 31.

Divers may take a limit for up to two people who assist by operating the boat, and scallops may be eaten at sea but any eaten count as part of the daily quota of 20 per person, and the empty shells must be kept as evidence of both the numbers and the minimum size of 100mm of the scallops taken. All other scallops must be taken ashore in the shell, so they can be measured. When dredging for scallops, only those actively involved in fishing are entitled to a daily bag limit.

Kingfish, meanwhile, are turning up at the popular spots like the Noises and Crusoe Rock. Fishing has also been good off Orete Point and over the pinnacles out in the middle of the Firth of Thames. This is one area where fresh jack mackerel is a top bait, rigged either whole with the head cut off or half of a large mackerel.

The reefs around Shag Rock and Gannet Rock are also holding fish, and one fish which can be found in good numbers is the john dory. The 30m hole in the channel between Waiheke and Pakatoa Islands is a reliable spot for hooking dory, and they can be targeted with a live mackerel dropped to the seabed. Another method is to drift and drop silver jigs or soft baits, and there is always a chance of a big snapper taking a liking to the lures.

August-September traditionally sees the first congregations of snapper before spring spawning. Shellfish beds in 18m of water on the eastern side of Rakino usually hold male snapper at this time of year. The normal pattern is for snapper to move from Bream Bay into the Hauraki Gulf. Some head into the Firth of Thames while others take the western side, past Kawau and into the flats between Tiritiri Matangi and The Noises and around Waiheke. When the water temperature reaches 18C the spawning is triggered, and this can happen any time from late October through to Christmas.

The snapper gather first in groups of males or females, then join in mass schools which rise to the surface for spawning. The males will strike at lures like jigs and soft plastics, which is just as much about aggression as feeding.

Snapper are starting to school on the 20m shelf south of the Ninepin at the Bay of Islands, and the bay is also reported to be full of mackerel, which when fished as live baits in the deeper water are hooking both kingfish and large snapper.

Drifting and throwing soft baits is also producing in the shallows and around the reefs, and in Bream Bay some good snapper are being taken off the Waipu River. Octopuses are also turning, proving a nuisance for people pulling their crayfish pots and finding empty shells. Their tentacles do make bait for big snapper.

Fishing in the Bay of Plenty has been slow in close, with the best action coming from 60 or 70m of water. Kingfish are running well on the edges of the offshore reefs, and banks around Mayor Island, and can be targeted with speed jigs or live baits.

Freshwater
Trout anglers are starting to think about the opening of the new season on October 1, checking batteries in boats and getting tackle ready. While the Rotorua lakes will be the main attraction, some fly fishermen will also be heading into the hills to fish rivers and streams. But the extreme rainfall experienced this winter will have changed rivers considerably and extra caution will be needed, as well as discovering new areas to fish.

Tip of the week
Always carry the small sabiki jig fly flashers which are great for catching jack mackerel (yellowtails). You can cut off every second trace, as they tangle easily and the small hooks seem to love fingers. With a scrap of bait added and lowered almost to the bottom in a berley trail they soon catch the lively little fish. One dropped back down with a hook through the back will soon attract any john dory in the vicinity. It can be fished with a heavy sinker to prevent it tangling other lines, and the rod tied to a rail up the front of the boat out of the way.

Bite times
Bite times are 8.55am and 9.15pm today and 9.40am and 10.05pm tomorrow. More fishing action can be found at GTTackle.co.nz.