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Snapper fishing continues apace but it's on the turn as temperatures drop and changes to technique will be necessary in coming weeks as fish get lazier, less hungry and more wary.
As a measure of how it is now, a party of 12 on Cobalt with skipper Alan Viscovich was disappointed to have to head for home after all nailing their limit - totalling 108 snapper - inside an hour and a half and just one gurnard and half a dozen kahawai to interrupt the flow of reds.
"It's getting a little bit slower and a little bit harder," Viscovich said of this week, though. He's been hitting the 40m mark at the back of the Noises and north towards Tiritiri Matangi.
"It's different every day. At times, there are no work-ups with dolphins and so on and other days you go from one to the other. But the snapper are there in patches all the time. Sometimes, the kahawai can be a pain there's so many, up to 3kg and feeding right to the bottom." All rigs are working.
Around the island reefs, john dory are taking live yellowtail or soft plastics.
Snapper are still being taken near the barges off Rangitoto and in the Rangitoto and Motuihe channels, though they are smaller than those out wide.
"The change is coming much later than last year, the water is still 18 degrees," Viscovich said.
Kingfish have been few and far between in the lower Hauraki Gulf, better catches reported at Tiri, Flat Rock and other reefs to the north.
Soft bait expert and Synit rod-builder Tiny Coe has been scoring well out from Orere Point, with trevally to 6kg going for three and four-inch swimming mullets.
"There are snapper too in close on the shallow reefs and in the wash and drop-offs. You need the smaller baits because, at this time of year, they aren't going for the big feed. Colour doesn't seem to matter."
The bottom end of Waiheke, Pakatoa Island, Ruth's Passage and the Clevedon Flats are all producing good snapper taken on three and four-inch softies, Coe says. The bigger lures aren't necessary unless in deeper water.
At the Bay of Islands, Geoff Stone reports good snapper in the shallows, which is normal for this time of year. Kingfish are widespread, congregating especially at Rocky Point and the 71m reef. There are large schools of kahawai to 3kg.
"We're hoping they deplete the food source for the barracouta so the barras remain out in deep water where they belong."
I reported on my ill-fated trip to the Three Kings in this column last month, about Rick Pollock's boat Pursuit being driven on to rocks at North Cape by a rogue wind. A week after that, he had arranged lease of Tracker II and has been back at the Kings in recent weeks.
The fishing for big bass and kingfish has been exceptional, Pollock says. The King Bank is the place for marlin with the sea temperature still 20-21deg C and mahimahi are also still there in numbers.
Out around the Far North, the water temperature has dropped markedly and although he says there are still marlin in the area from Cape Karikari to North Cape, they now pick at and drop lures rather than hitting with intention.
The snapper fishing in that area has been brilliant, with fish to 10kg regularly and some to 12kg from Doubtless Bay up and especially around Spirits and Tom Bowling Bays and the Cape, Pollock says.
Pursuit, meanwhile, sustained little structural damage during the grounding.
John Gregory on Primetime had a good week northwest of the Kings on the South Maria Bank, nailing 13 broadbill and 31 marlin.
