Geoff Thomas: Bait strategies get spring off to a good start

Cubes of pilchard are your best bet for catching gurnard. Photo / Glenn Jeffrey

The bait which is working best for gurnard on the Manukau Harbour at the moment is cubes of pilchard. But not just any pilchards - the ones which are soft and mushy.

Usually bait which has been thawed and refrozen is good only for berley, as it is too soft to stay on the hook, but in the case of small baits for gurnard these work well. It is just a question of using bait elastic to tie the cube of soft bait on to the hook.

Maybe the juices which leak out and the fragments which break off act as miniature berley systems and attract the fish.

If it becomes too hard keeping bait on the hooks, it can be mixed with other tough baits like salted mullet, with a cube of pilchard on two hooks and one of salted mullet on another hook on the ledger or flasher rig.

The same rig worked well for one party of South Auckland fishermen earlier in the week when they headed out to fish a favourite spot in the Manukau Harbour, which has some deep foul on the bottom in about 20m of water. The fishing was better than they had found in late summer when it is usually at its peak, and they caught a bag of snapper between 35cm and 40cm, then finished with specimens of 5.5kg, 8kg and 8.2kg.

They were not using berley for fear of attracting sharks, which can be a real problem in the harbour, and the water temperature was between 10-11C.

"When we left the fish were still in a feeding frenzy," said one angler. To cap off a great day, they stopped in Ropers Channel on the way home and added 18 gurnard to the fish bin, also releasing "countless kahawai".

"Could this be a sign of a very early spring and a long summer like last year?" he wondered.

In the Kaipara Harbour, the fishing reports have not been so encouraging and indicate that gurnard fishing has become harder.

Out in the Hauraki Gulf, the large school of fish which has been located east of Tiritiri Matangi Island has moved north. If the congregation can be found, it is not hard to catch snapper and john dory on the bottom and trevally and kahawai in mid-water.

Soft baits, jigs or small live baits can be dropped to the seabed while drifting through the surface activity, although bottom-feeders are usually a little distance away, down the current. Otherwise, cut baits on a ledger rig, with a heavy sinker to keep it on the bottom, should produce snapper.

It can sometimes be a problem getting a lure or bait down through the barracouta, which are prevalent throughout the winter, and any shiny swivels or lures should be avoided. The barracouta can be cut up for strip baits or turned into berley.

Trevally are one fish which move inshore at this time of year and for the next two months can often be found around structures like reefs, weed beds, marker poles and mooring chains. They can be targeted, but are more wary than fish like snapper, so using thin, clear monofilament trace like fluorocarbon is a good move.

Berley helps attract trevally and the boat should be positioned so the berley washes down the current along the edge of a reef or weed bed.

Baits should be small, like cubes of pilchard or squid on small circle hooks; trevally also love shellfish baits like pipi or mussels bound on to the hook with bait elastic.

Trevally have soft mouths and are tough fighters, and should be netted when brought to the boat as they often fall off the hook if lifted out of the water.

They will take a fly fished on a saltfly outfit, and one angler reported finding small green cockabullies inside the stomach of a trevally when cleaning it. A saltfly pattern like a clouser is a good imitation of a small fish and will entice trevally when fished down a berley trail.

More fishing action can be found on Rheem Outdoors with Geoff, 5.30pm on TV3, and on the new internet television channel, FishnHunt.Tv