Fishing: Kingfish best focus for anglers now as snapper catches become patchy

By GEOFF THOMAS

Gone Fishing


Kingfish are now providing some of the best fishing action, with fish all along the Coromandel coast and in both harbours in Auckland.

While there are large numbers of small kingfish in many areas, there are also kings of 20kg-30kg to be hooked.

Popular kingfish spots include the Waiau Pa boat ramp and Puponga Pt on the Manukau Harbour, around the channel marker buoys on the Waitemata and over the reefs off Crusoe Rock and the Noises.

Trolling is a good method for locating kingfish, using beaked lures like the rapala or live baitfish. They also like to hang around structures in the water like buoys, and have been reported around the old frigate Waikato, which has been moored off Musick Pt for some time.

These fish can be tempted with a surface popper cast close to the buoy and retrieved quickly, or with a whole baitfish like a piper - a favourite of kingfish - which can be rigged dead with a hook through the skull and a small ball sinked hard against the fish to add weight for casting.

Some anglers like to break off the piper's beak to prevent it spinning, or the beak can be secured to the trace with fuse wire or a twist tie.

But live bait remains the best method for kingfish, presented either under a float like a balloon or on the bottom.

The problem of dense schools of pilchards showing up in the inner Hauraki Gulf has not occurred for several years, but the baitfish are now thick around Waiheke Island and off the Noises.

There will be kingfish around these concentrations of feed amd it is also worth dropping a bait for snapper to the sea bed underneath.

Snapper fishing has been patchy, with large numbers of undersized fish in many places but some large fish also to be found.

The upper Waitemata Harbour has fished well, with snapper up to 2kg and a recent competition inside the harbour was won by a fish of 4.3kg.

Fishing in the Motuihe and Sargeant Channels has been consistent, as would be expected at this time of the year, and the shallow water off the East Coast Bays is worth fishing in the early morning and evening.

The tides are peaking towards next week's full moon and the large tides will produce powerful currents in the channels, restricting effective fishing to about two hours on each side of high and low tide.

While the west coast has been disappointing for game fish this summer, some anglers 80km offshore brought in two bigeye tuna recently.

A 14kg snapper was reported caught at Slipper Island this week, while warm currents around the Aldermen Islands are holding skipjack tuna, which indicates that there could still be marlin in the area.