Fishing: The weather's rough but the fishing's fine

By PETER JESSUP

Some will tell you the winter fishing is too hard and to put the gear away until spring.

But rewards have been there in recent days for those prepared to get out.

Fishers have taken limit bags of decent snapper by straylining in close to rocks near the baches on Rangitoto and at the south end of Waiheke.

Off the Northland coast, big snapper are being taken in the 60-80 metre mark everywhere from Waipu to the Cape. Best results have come from drift-fishing with whole pilchards and a 2oz ball sinker fixed at the top of the bait to ensure you're on the bottom.

Good weather last week allowed plenty of boaties to get out off the west coast and from Kawhia to Raglan there were good catches of snapper up to 8kg in the 40-50m drop. The best method there has been the dropper rig with big baits on 8/0 hooks. Berley and patience is required.

Manukau guru John Moran and kite fisherman Paul Barnes report that big snapper are still in the harbour. Moran has been throwing a big, messy bait such as a bonito head well out the back of his tinny while fishing beneath it for gurnard and trevally. He's had four lines out and all have gone tight at once.

The gurnard have been plentiful in the usual areas near the channels some days, hard to find on others but always seem to be around, Moran says. He and Barnes have had trevally up to 4kg in numbers. They're being taken when the tide runs hard in or out with shellfish being the best bait as usual.

There's a trick in identifying the bite then playing them more gently than you would other fish because of the tendency to rip hooks from the soft lip. The fish are fat and perfect for smoking.

Kahawai are still running in the Manukau channels.

Dredgers report that the Manukau scallops are starting to whiten and develop roe but they are still no culinary delight.

The prevalence of john dory on the market at the moment is due to an unexplained explosion in stocks in QMS area 7, around Nelson and Farewell Spit.

The commercial boys caught their quota in a matter of weeks and are appealing to the Ministry of Fisheries for relief from "deemed value" payments whereby they are penalised for exceeding the allowance.

The dory by-catch in the area has more than doubled in the past two seasons. It's a pattern now being repeated in area 2 off the east coast of the North Island.

The reason for the big increase in biomass is unknown but thought to be related to favourable spawning conditions three seasons ago. Thus it is not a population expected to be sustained at current levels.

Off the American west coast there is interest in a New Zealand-style QMS because of wastage brought about by existing fishing restrictions. The 260-vessel fleet is out all year round hunting declining numbers of legal-size and species fish. The result is huge wastage as the out-of-season and undersized are literally shovelled back overboard.

A survey from August to August has shown that as much as half the trawl catch is "wastage" - more than 1.1 billion kilograms of the 4 billion kilograms of fish hauled up was thrown back dead, dying or wasted. Fishermen are pushing for seasonal controls, restrictions on method and other limits that preserve juveniles.