Geoff Thomas: Catchers' handy tips

5:30 AM Sunday Dec 30, 2012

Photo / Geoff Thomas

How often do you pull up a yellowtail while snapper fishing?

It happens often, and smart fishermen keep it for bait. This is just one of many tips and ideas we come across. In the spirit of sharing, a selection is offered for your edification.

In Waitemata Harbour in summer the best fishing is on slack or small tides. Tide flows are stronger inside the harbour because it is so narrow, and big tides also stir up mud so fish can't see the bait. With traces below a sinker the rule is, the stronger the current the longer the trace. Conversely, on slack tide switch to a ledger rig.

Don't lift fish out of the water with your rod. It will likely snap. With sinkers - use only as much weight as is needed.

If sharks are a problem when bottom fishing try mussels as bait. Salting for two or three days toughens them up.

Change baits at least every 15 minutes - fresh is best and old baits lose smell.

When starting it is a good idea to use a ledger rig and a running rig with a trace. Often one works better than the other.

For larger fish use fillets or whole butterflied yellowtail. You'll get fewer bites, but bigger snapper.

When eating soft food like pilchards, snapper swim around holding it in their mouth. They'll expel the food then take it in again.

This emphasises the need to give fish time to nibble a bait and swim a short distance away before striking.

Check potential fishing spots by looking for guts and channels in reefs, and rocks with feed like kina or mussels.

Snapper love oysters. To keep it on the hook empty a tea bag, slip the oyster inside and thread it on the hook.

By Geoff Thomas

- Herald on Sunday

WarwickH-S () | 07:35PM Wednesday, 02 Jan 2013

I divulged a couple of family secrets to a chap (a Mr Watson) who came to my house to polish my wooden floors. He told me his son had just started a fishing program, and so we talked about methods. I divulged the secret of how to catch a marlin from a canoe. 6 months later a Herald article reported a certain TV personality had caught a marlin from a dingy. This helped launch his fame and fortune.
If only I had received a phone call or an invite to go fishing, there would have been a few more excellent tips never employed in NZ that I picked up from years of fishing with the experts of all types of fishing, the Tuvaluans.
I will thus not share any more secrets.

The old sage (New Zealand) | 07:35PM Wednesday, 02 Jan 2013

Now here is a good fishing tip Geoff. Set up a retail bait store and rake in the thousands in profit. The cost of bait climbs at over 100% year by year and the quality and quantity goes down proportionatly. The fisho's are being taken to the cleaners here and it is about time some fishing clubs set about a cooperative to supply and sell bait at a resonable price. Noone minds retailers making a profit but the current cost is excessive.

fisherator snapper () | 11:04AM Wednesday, 09 Jan 2013

110% true. Anyway, I never buy this crapy fall apart bait but instead catch Jack Mackerel (yellowtail) and use them fresh either cut into stakes or in half, depending on their size. There is no better bait for big snapper than a yellowtail.