Fishing: In weather like this, stick to dawn and dusk

Seafishers are hardly celebrating this festive season as gales blow away all the fun and restrict boat- and rock-fishing expeditions. The weekend's forecast doesn't offer a lot of hope.

"It's a horrible time of the year for fishing," said one Aucklander of 30 years' experience. "Always has been, always will be with the changeable weather."

But you can bet it will be all on - perhaps by next week - once the weather begins to settle, because the snapper are due to move closer to the coasts and up the harbours in greater numbers as they feed up at large after spawning.

This week, from Coromandel to the Far North, the snapper schools have been moving around a lot in deeper water and you really have to spend time to sound them out before putting baits down.

The same rules apply everywhere: best bite times are dawn and dusk, or through the night hours when the fish come in closer to feed. If you're going out in the middle of the day, head for deeper water. The bait of the moment is squid, especially baby squid.

In the Hauraki Gulf, boaties unable to go further out because of winds have been picking up a few fish between North Head and Browns Island, an area often overlooked and which should start filling up with fish from now on.

The Rangitoto Channel is holding fish, and you should also get a feed in the Tiri Passage and around Wellington Reef on the northern side of Whangaparaoa.

If you're going out at night, try off Browns Bay and Long Bay or anywhere else along the East Coast Bays where you can find shelter from the southwesterlies.

By far the best reports from the Hauraki Gulf have been coming from the Motuihe Channel, where squid and green flashers have been nabbing limit bags. It is definitely the spot to take your kids at the moment and you can just about guarantee them some action.

Charter skipper Eugene De Bruyn (Sea Genie) says the Motuihe Channel has been fishing exceptionally well for 2-3kg snapper (he advises skippers to be aware of the ferry lane on the northern side). The Rangitoto Channel and the hole off Matiatia, at Waiheke, have also been producing good catches, he says.

The Matiatia hole fishes best at its outer eastern edge on an incoming tide, and its western edge on an outgoing tide.

De Bruyn is expecting the best gulf fishing to come, especially if a second spawning wave is triggered, which happens some years in favourable weather and sea temperatures.

Good reports have also been coming in from Colville at the top of Coromandel, where spawning snapper in the upper Firth of Thames will soon be moving right up the firth to feed on the large numbers of crustaceans and shellfish there.

In Auckland's harbours, especially the Manukau, many fishers target the channels when they could be better off from now on in the shallower water.

The snapper come in on the channels with the incoming tide and fan out over the shallower shellfish beds to feed.

In the Far North, my keen mate Terry spent four days sitting around the coast and harbour in his kayak and got nothing.

He wasn't the only one complaining long and loud. So was the guy next to him who broke off an estimated 27kg (60lb) kingfish on the far side of Mangonui Harbour.

Doug McColl at Coopers Beach Sports points out that the boaties in the north have to go deep at the moment - 60m to 70m - to get snapper unless they go out at first light or after dark.

He's heard of limit bags being taken at night off Tokerau Beach this week, and good fishing too at Matai Bay and Taupo Bay.

This week, he says, Doubtless Bay Lightline Club member Larry Mathews weighed in two snapper of 8.6kg and 6.3kg.

"Early morning and evening is the time," says McColl. "During the day it is certainly quieter and harder. You need to go 60m to 70m and sound out exactly where the fish are. Watch for the birds working and follow them."

Meanwhile, the marlin are starting to hit, with five officially weighed in up north.

Whangaroa Big Game Club captain Paul Ratcliffe leads the early running for biggest stripey with a 126.9kg fish - his first - on 24kg line from the boat Masquerade.

Out of Whangarei, the Rona G brought in a 99.8kg stripey, and the Bay of Islands boats Target, Salt Shaker and Ikanui tagged and released fish estimated at 120kg, 75kg and 85kg respectively.

Fifteen-year-old Ricky Corden, of Totara North, has a national and world junior record claim in for a 70.5kg yellowfin tuna caught from the boat Seaquell out of Whangaroa. It weighed more than him.