KEY POINTS:
Soft plastics are flavour of the moment but many anglers either have yet to try them or are yet to enjoy the success they expect with bait.
Two Aussies who use nothing but are here for a repeat trip to show Kiwi anglers what's new in gear and
technique.
Michael Gueste and Mark Phillips are marketers for the Berkley "Gulp" brand of flavoured soft plastics and Fireline braid. They have spent the past week filming new techniques at Kawau, off the Coromandel and at the Mokohinau Islands.
One of the new methods is deepwater fishing with plastics, which until now have been used mainly in the shallows. Gueste and Phillips fished water from 50 to 80 metres, catching kingfish, snapper to 7kg, porae and other species.
They used what they call an elevator rig. On the bottom is a teardrop sinker from 28 to 170 grams - depending on depth and current - with a swivel attached and a split ring on the other end of the swivel.
A 6/0 straight-shank hook with no offset is attached to the split ring and the soft bait threaded on. The rig sinks fast to the bottom and the anglers use short, sharp movements and jiggles rather than retrieves to attract fish.
The Aussies also filmed drift-fishing in middle depths with baits cast out from the boat and wash fishing right in on the shore. There, too, movement is more important than straight retrieval.
Braid is essential for its strength, lack of stretch so bites are felt immediately and thinner diameter than mono so it casts better and sinks faster. The Aussies use a fluorocarbon leader of 6-15kg which is less visible.
Adam Clancey, who presents Sky's Fishing Show and fished with the pair this week to help produce the new DVD, gave away some of their secrets.
"All the baits they used worked but the best for big snapper was the 'Pogy'," he said. It is a paddle-tail lure about 15cm long.
Colour seemed less important than the paddle tail on big snapper. "They used softer colours like grey, green and blue in shallow water and the lumos, bright pinks and nuclear chickens in the deeper water.
"They reckon contrast is more important than colour so they used ones with light bellies and darker tops or whatever," Clancey said.
Gueste and Phillips will give seminars at the Boat Show today and tomorrow at 11am, 1.30pm and 4pm. If you're going, head in early; it's been packed. There is the usual range of last season's run-out gear but little in the fishing line that is innovative bar the soft-bait boys.
* Huia's Pete Jackson is something of a legend for his fishing off the Auckland west coast - he goes whenever the weather is right and knows where to find fish - and the recent easterly conditions have been a bonus for him.
Fishing on foul ground off the continental shelf between 300m and 350m deep in a location he labels "top secret", Jackson and two mates landed deep sea bass up to 65kg.
They were out overnight fishing for broadbill, as he has been on several occasions recently, but the swordfish do not appear to have come down the west coast in numbers this year and catches have been rare. Jackson has yet to get one, but the bass and bluenose up to 22kg that the trio picked up are among the best eating fish.
He said there was no fishing pressure on the area because it's so hard to find. On the way back in they saw a striped marlin sunning itself in 55m of water just off the Manukau bar. It showed no interest in their lures.
Around Auckland the snapper are moving to deeper water - particularly the bigger fish.
There are lots of big kahawai about in Doubtless Bay and they can be picked up from the rocks and beaches. Cut baitfish are better than whole because the fish are not attacking hard and so sometimes miss the hook in larger baits. Snapper have been harder to come by, the change of light producing best.
Further north, marlin continue to be taken at the north end of Great Exhibition Bay, over the Parengarenga Canyon and off North Cape, but there are on-days and then two or three off-days.
