Big Tides bring out fish in Northland

The fish have certainly come out to play this past week by all reports, that full moon phase and big tides are great for fishing in autumn.
Last weekend was no exception, with good snapper being caught in the channels and in the harbour shallows and schools wandering about all over the ocean.
Especially down at Bream Bay/Waipu and out in 40m of water along the coast and out around the islands.
Many bigger snapper are being taken using artificial baits in deeper areas.
Those anglers using berley and working really shallow into the evening have been producing snapper to 8.6kg.
Baby bonito or whole mullet are baits working well in these situations, with two big 8/0 hooks and 50kg trace plus.
A young fellow out fishing with his dad and a newly-acquired rod and reel set (from sending in a photo to Fish and Pics) "somewhere near Peach Cove" got himself an 8lb (3.6kg) snapper as his first catch on his new tackle.
Well done young man, pay attention in English class and you will be writing this column before long.
The Hen and Chicks are fishing at their very best right now and one boat found big blue maomao, snapper, trevally and quite a few other species pounding their surface berley the other day, truly an indicator that everything is out and about and feeding strongly.
Big kingfish to 30kg and the occasional marlin and shark cruise this area making for exciting fishing, you never know what is going to turn up.
The marlin have tended to be in 80m of water north of the Chicks most recently though, still a lively kahawai drifted out under a balloon will attract all sorts of interest at this time of year.
A couple of incidents highlight how experience can really make a difference in fishing results.
Recently, a group of anglers was doing well on crazy legs softbaits up Oakura way but their catch stopped abruptly when they ran out and switched to "jerk shad" softbaits.
Even in the identical pattern, they didn't know to change the action of the new soft bait since the crazy legs create a lot of movement without a lot of angler effort and the snapper needed that movement to keep them on the bite.
Another group off Waipu was drifting the deep and two of the three anglers were hiding their hooks inside the baits while the third had his hooks standing proud out of his baits.
Overall bite numbers weren't significantly different on the day but the properly rigged baits had many more hook-ups, which makes you realise that a natural looking bait with well-exposed hooks is the better way to go for when that bigger fish decides to run before eating the bait.
In both cases, presentation was crucial to angling success.
Just a little word to end on, about fishing from other people's boats.
If you are lucky enough to get an invitation to fish from someone else's boat, make sure that you buy all the bait and offer to pay your share of the fuel.
Also make sure that you clean the boat down and do your share of filleting.
Running a boat costs plenty and I have seen many a guest on a fishing trip come into the tackle store and just buy a packet of pillies with the boat owner buying 5kg of bait, and the berley, and the salt ice.
 Always pay more than you think your share is and you will be invited back again.