Fishing: New TV show helps to put food on the table

By PETER JESSUP

Getting a feed from your backyard is the theme of a new fishing show to start on Sky Sport next week. It will focus on methods that will produce fish from wharves, harbours and channels that are easily accessible.

Champion angler Adam Clancey is host and instructor.

Clancey, 40, a west Aucklander married with three kids, knows how much a free dinner can help with balancing a tight budget.

He has records for kingfish and sharks caught by strayline and flyline, but the type of fishing featured on the show, called FishingNZ , is more likely to be how to nail trevally along the Tamaki waterfront, kahawai from the Cornwallis wharf or pan-size snapper from local headlands.

Each Tuesday night's 30-minute show will include a kids' segment.

"The idea is not to compete with the other fishing shows (Geoff Thomas' Mazda Outdoors and Graeme Sinclair's Gone Fishin') but to offer something more method and technique-oriented rather than focusing on destinations," he said, "and to get more fishing on TV".

The annual spend on recreational fishing tops $1.2 billion, according to estimates, so there's lots of room to expand horizons.

The time slot of 6.30pm is hardly ideal. "We hope people will tape it if they are watching the news."

But the show will be repeated on other Sky channels later each week. Ten episodes are planned.

Fishing has been hot in some areas but not in others, and many boaties have been restricted because of high winds. It's been patchy around Auckland, both the harbours and open coast.

The fishing is better further north, with anglers from Whangarei to the Bay of Islands reporting good snapper catches.

Wayne Radford, who operates his charters mostly around the Mokohinau Islands, has had some good catches of hapuka and big snapper in close to the rocky volcanic group. He checked his diary - same thing happened last year.

"The hapuka are in shallow water and they're feeding hard," he said. The fishes' stomachs are full and they'll take anything from squid to pilchards. His clients caught several hapuka in the 15kg range.

Radford's diary tells him the fish were around until Christmas last year, with size increasing through the spring and some 45kg fish caught.

"You have to load up quickly in the shallows or they'll bust off," he said. A strayline rig would nail those and snapper in the 5kg-10kg range.

Further north, Doubtless Bay has been quiet. Surfcasters have been finding some success off Tokerau and Karikari beaches.

The Weymouth Fishing Club annual kahawai contest was abandoned last weekend due to high winds on the Manukau. The harbour is fishing well at the mouth, poorly higher up. Kahawai are hanging in numbers on the Huia bank. Gurnard can be found in patches on the edge of canals.

Try skipping flat, dark lures slowly along the bottom as it's flounder spawning season, the babies a favourite food of the winged reds.