KEY POINTS:
Snapper continue to feed hungrily and are taking all manner of baits and lures in their pre-winter feed-up North Island-wide. Billfish are still being landed up north.
It seems all methods of fishing are working on the reds at the moment, with anglers reporting good catches strayling whole
or cut baits or soft baits back towards rocks or foul ground, jigging the bottom at the 40m mark, using soft baits in shallow water and bait-fishing under work-ups.
And most of the catch is well over legal size and in good condition.
Around Auckland, the Noises and Ahas have been fishing well especially during the week when boat traffic is reduced. Snapper up to 10kg were taken at Channel Island in numbers in the past week.
Further out, Great Barrier and the Mokohinaus have been producing well. Anglers at the Mokes in the past week have been treated to an explosion of porae, a terrific eating fish rarely caught by rod and reel since it eats mainly small crabs, shellfish and worms and has a small mouth and inward-facing teeth to crunch them.
If you are plagued by little ones, move. Find the bigger fish behind structure in current, or in the wash around offshore lumps and rocks around the open coast. They are also feeding hard under work-ups of kahawai, which remain common in the mid-to-outer Hauraki Gulf and off the Northland coast.
There have been big schools of big kahawai off the west coast but curiously, only a few small ones are being caught inside the Manukau.
The Manukau seems between seasons. Some big trevally are still being taken on mussel baits and lots of flounder can be netted or caught on size 10 trout hooks baited with worms, chunks of shellfish tied on with bait elastic or corn kernels.
Snapper fishing is patchy, though some big fish have been caught near the top of the tide. And as with the kahawai, gurnard fishing outside the mouth is very good, inside poor. A cold snap will change that.
The Bay of Islands continues to fish well, said charter skipper Geoff Stone on Major Tom II. Snapper are in the shallows on the coast. Inside the Bay, early morning and evening are best.
Four marlin were taken off Cape Brett this week and one broadbill was landed from the Garden Patch.
The Whangarei Deep Sea Anglers Club continues to enjoy good billfishing out from Tutukaka, with another concerted effort expected this weekend as water up to 20.5C hangs around just behind the Poor Knights Islands. A 239kg broadbill was landed at Tutukaka this week on the Auckland boat Lionheart and two striped marlin were weighed.
Charter skipper Eugyn de Bruin has been fishing the area and said the easterly winds appeared to be holding the good water in place.
Further north, Rick Pollock on Pursuit reported some success over the Parengarenga Canyon, with marlin being hooked in water between 120m and 140m. Water off North Cape was 20.5C and every second boat passing through was hooking up.
At the Three Kings, the Middlesex Bank has been dead for game fish despite good water. And curiously the only marlin hooked lately have been at the King Bank which has been as low as 16C, at least three degrees below what billfish normally like.
The Ministry of Fisheries has ramped up work to estimate the size of the recreational catch, in response to the recent High Court decision on kahawai. All interested parties will be keen to see a more accurate assessment of the total amateur take.
The National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research is conducting aerial and boat ramp surveys off the west coast, targeting ramps around harbours such as the Manukau, Kaipara, Raglan and Kawhia as well as the New Plymouth coastline.
Early indications are that, despite the rise in methods such as kite and submarine line-hauling, 90 per cent of the west coast catch is taken by boat.
The west coast recreational fishery, at around 200 tonnes take, pales into insignificance against that off the east coast, estimated at about 2500 tonnes.
The "grand slam" reported in last weekend's column was in fact New Zealand's second, as rumoured. Pete Saul, records officer of the NZ Big Game Fishing Council, said an American angler, W. Campbell, caught a blue, a black and a striped marlin while fishing from Alan Limmer's charter boat Karina in 1978.
The council's Richard Baker had a good day out himself last Saturday on his boat Final Decision, tagging two striped marlin then hooking a broadbill within 15 minutes of starting a night-time drift.