Fishing: Perfect time to take the kids out fishing

By PETER JESSUP

'Tis the season to take the kids fishing and you can't beat the local wharf.

There is a good education to be had for children in the preparation alone. They should be taught how to tie a uni-knot, which gear including hooks to select and why, and which rigs to use.

The kids get into the preparation for the day's fishing as much as they do the event itself. It's also less stressful for adults if they are a bit self-reliant.

There is constant entertainment to be had from some of Auckland's easily accessible wharfs, including Orakei, Devonport, Birkenhead and Cornwallis on the Manukau. The harbour also offers good rock ledges where there is a chance of a reasonable snapper.

Orakei regularly turns up kahawai. School snapper are common - to defeat the little ones use bigger hooks, 6-8/0. Baits cast on the up-harbour side will often hook an eagle ray, which will give a good fight but usually bust off. Shellfish baits such as pipi, tied on with snapper, will snare trevally and parore.

The Devonport wharf produces school snapper, john dory around the piers and piper on the outer harbour side. The piper will frequently ignore sprat lines and sabiki jigs. Tie a 40cm trace of very light line to a float, with a very small hook baited with rolled dough. Keep the piper live in a bucket and you could fish for kings. Or keep them in good condition - they are great eating when fried in butter.

Birkenhead wharf is fishing well right now on an incoming tide in the evening, and there's good snapper to be had. Use a running rig on a sand-grip sinker cast straight out.

The Cornwallis wharf attracts huge schools of baitfish on most tides. Sometimes they can be finicky eaters, frustratingly schooling on the surface but refusing all attempts to hook them. Some toasted, crumbled bread flicked across the surface can stir them to take baits when picky.

Sabiki jigs usually work here and the baitfish hooked can be re-set for a kahawai.

Catching bait then using it to catch dinner is a good education for a young fisher. Try taking the sprats from the wharf to a local rocky headland to score a kahawai or snapper.

From Cornwallis, go further west to Kaiterakihi as the tide rises to high in the evening and cast straight off the beach, where the water is about as deep as it gets off Manukau beaches. Kahawai and snapper are common takes.

The old Mangere wharf is fishing better, locals reckon because of the continuing improvement in water quality as factory run-offs are better controlled and siltation decreases.

Use a running rig on an out-going tide. Local advice - use baits with a piece of dorsal fin attached, or silver flies with a bait or even silver Christmas ribbon tied on the bait with cotton. Hung from the bridge into the out-going current they act like a static "troll" and are likely to hook kahawai.