Fishing: Weather keeps anglers honest

The wild weather has curtailed fishing in most areas but good catches continue as conditions allow.

Mates from South Auckland who collaborate in the "Dirty Dozen" fishing club are contesting the CC Memorial trophy for biggest snapper caught in land-based fishing at Great Barrier Island today and over the weekend.

They are a hardened and experienced crew who have some great yarns from previous contests, including estimating the size of one fish that was so big it got its mouth round a two-litre plastic milk container filled with berley.

The anglers had set out several milk containers on rope just off the rocks to get a good trail going. Soon after, one spotted a snapper with its head out of the water, squeezing the berley bottle and sucking out the contents.

It had to be 15kg to get its mouth round the bottle, they reckoned, but there is no evidence since all were so gobsmacked they didn't take a photo before the fish swam off.

But snapper in the 10kg range are common, as are bust-offs, prompting regular reporter to this column John Moran to prepare this week with a bigger reel and heavier line than he has relied on in the past.

The contest, which remembers member Colin Cobbald, starts before dawn, with a chartered boat dropping some anglers at rocky outcrops and others using inflatable boats to reach favourite spots. At night the weigh-in is at the Stray Possum Lodge in Tryphena. The hard-gusting winds of the past few days will have anglers seeking spots in the lee, but good fish are still expected.

Surfcasters fishing off the beaches at the northern end of Motutapu have taken snapper in the 8kg range in the past week.

Round most of the Hauraki Gulf the fish are in the 2kg to 4kg range but in very good condition. The bite is short and can be driven by the weather squalls. Strip baits or squid are better than pilchards.

Squid are still hanging around in the weed and they can be caught on a jig hung below the boat and just off the bottom while you continue to fish.

Eugen de Bruyn of Sea Genie charters reported good catches in the deeper holes around the Noises group: snapper in the 2kg to 4kg range as well as trevally, gurnard and some blue cod. De Bruyn was fortunate enough to take advantage of the good weather last Friday and got out to the 40m mark off the Manukau bar, nailing snapper up to 6kg and big kahawai.

Good, fat snapper are still congregating from Thumb Point south past Hooks Bay on Waiheke Island. A slow retrieve of the bait across the bottom is the most productive method.

Around the Bay of Islands, Geoff Stone, from Major Tom II, reports some hapuku still on the wider reefs, as weather allows, with snapper hard to bring on the bite. Some good fish have been taken from the Ninepins north to Rocky Point, especially in the lee of the sou-wester. Cut baits on a ledger rig will also get tarakihi, Stone said.

On the Coromandel, Dave "Mavis" Bryant of NZ Landbased Safaris reported good catches of snapper in the 2kg to 3kg range with anglers taking a limit in a couple of hours and the fishing location not that critical, the schools widespread and feeding. Squid works best as bait, fresh kahawai also good.

The odd solo kingfish has been caught or sighted, all big, in the 20kg-plus range.

At Taupo the trout fishing has been hot with a variety of methods producing, including harling in the shallows of the lake and trolling as winds allows, plus some early dry-fly fishing with a rise reported mid-morning on recent days.

Since the back country season opened last weekend the angler pressure on the Taupo stream mouths and the rivers has dropped, said Jarred Goedhart from the Sporting Life store in Turangi.

Anglers saw plenty of fish but they were sometimes hard to snare, presumably because the water was relatively low and clear, although rain had fallen this week.