KEY POINTS:
There's been one word for the fishing in the past week - lousy.
Experts who can normally "find fish in a puddle" have been coming home near empty-handed.
On the Hauraki Gulf, island residents who have their secret spots have been taking some snapper in close and after
much berleying. Some fish are being caught around Rangitoto, Browns Island and Bean Rock in close. But in the main, the fishing has been very hard.
We had perfect weather last Friday and went out to 45 metres to look for work-ups. There were none. Coming in closer to D'Urville Rock off Waiheke we found large schools of baitfish. But only small snapper took half-hearted hits at our soft plastics. Frustrated, we caught mackerel and put them down as livebaits, taking three John Dory in the space of five minutes so we did not go home empty-handed - but that was it for six hours of fishing.
Alan Viscovich with Cobalt Charters is one of those experts who agrees it's been hard. He's been fishing the Colville area. There were still small patches of fish under feeding dolphins in the outer Gulf, he said.
Manukau Harbour expert John Moran went to Napier last weekend, travelling 20km offshore to fish on the wreck of the trawler Gwen Bee. He caught one red cod and one small gurnard. On spying surface feeding, he put his soft plastic gear out for kahawai, hooked a big kingfish and it broke his rod.
Soft plastic expert Tiny Coe spent a day at the back of Waiheke and couldn't buy a hit. But his regular fishing partner, teenager Chloe Paterson, who featured on the cover of this month's NZ Fishing World magazine with a big snapper, nailed an even bigger one, 10.4kg, on another day's fishing deep at Port Jackson on the tip of the Coromandel.
The Manukau and Kaipara Harbours continue to fish well when weather allows, which is not often. The early-risers have been beating the wind, home with good catches of gurnard before the chop gets up.
In all areas, it is best to use small baits rather than whole fish. The snapper and other species have slowed their metabolisms for the winter cold. They are not feeding often and nor are they feeding aggressively. Movement helps, which is why SPs can work better than baits. Livebaits are also better than the usual summer rigs.
In Northland, MFish has had some success nailing poachers, one a commercial operation suspected of systematic over-fishing, the other locals dobbed in by locals.
MFish officers carried out surveillance for some months on a commercial netter working Far North harbours for flounder, mullet and kahawai. After confronting the operator about catch records, they seized a three-tonne truck, a 5m alloy boat and a 5.5m ply boat, fishing gear and documentation. A Kaitaia man will be before the courts.
And information from residents at Te Ngaere Bay in the north resulted in the interception of two men who had 43 snapper (limit nine each) of which 11 were undersized, as well as undersized kingfish, paua and crayfish. They were each given on-the-spot fines of $1250. An easy out, really, but at least it's quick and clinical and we don't have to pay legal aid while they drag the case through the courts.
At Taupo, fishing has improved as rainfall dropped. The rivers were dirty early in the week, the smaller ones unfishable. By Wednesday anglers were doing well on the Tongariro, said guide Chappy Chapman from Sporting Life in Turangi. The river was running at 143cumecs (cubic metres per second), high but dropping. He predicted good weekend fishing.
The Delta was fishing well.
The Tauranga-Taupo was higher and dirtier, and expected to clear more slowly.