KEY POINTS:
Fish are smart, warns an advertisement for a local tackle and bait company.
Unfortunately for the fish, so are humans.
The level of technology now being employed by anglers to wrest their quarry from the sea is scary.
Sounders are getting so good they almost let anglers see what's on fishes' minds as they congregate in mid-water, while techniques such as soft baiting have introduced technology into an area that used to require nothing more scientific than hacking a dead fish into chunks and threading it onto a hook.
The latest new-fangled aid to catch my eye is 3D navigation charting.
Computerised 3D charts can be used to suss out likely fish habitats from the comfort of your own home.
Ever wondered what your favourite spot actually looked like from the bottom of the ocean? 3D chart software will show you. A click of the mouse and you can be looking along the ocean floor at every hole and pin along Motuihe Channel.
Hover your mouse pointer over the position you might want to drop your anchor and integrated GPS technology will provide the co-ordinates to plug into your chart plotter.
Some charter skippers are now cutting out the middle man and using the systems, some of which also come with real-time tide and current information, directly on their boats.
Like I said, scary.
If you want to see the system in action, see Matt at Eastside Bait & Tackle on Ti Rakau Drive. Matt uses a system called Max Sea, which actually covers the whole globe, although the level of information for various regions depends on how well they have been charted.
Max Sea is apparently hard to come by in New Zealand but an outfit called Memory-Map - www.memory-map.co.nz - sells detailed 3D charts for this country.
Like most tackle store operators, Matt's always a handy source of information for the latest hot spot. But he's the first bloke to show me what the terrain where my baits will be sitting actually looks like, demonstrate why a spot should be fished a certain way and then hand over the GPS co-ordinates.
In the battle between angler and fish, technology might be tipping the scales our way, but it is hardly necessary at the moment.
Throw a dart at a chart of the inner Gulf and you'll probably hit an area that's holding snapper. I launch at Maraetai and haven't needed to head out of the Tamaki Strait in over a month, which is good for the fuel bill.
Drifting on the 6m-7m line is producing well, with good patches of well-conditioned 35cm-40cm snapper interspersed with schools of juveniles.
Chunky trevally have also been showing up, which is great news for sashimi fans.
Matt describes the Motuihe Channel as "firing on all cylinders", while Park Point and the Rangi Channel have also been fishing well, as have the usual North Shore haunts.
Kahawai and birds have been massing along the front of Waiheke, with good catches of snapper being taken underneath them out from Onetangi.
Kingfish have started to show up around the Ahaas, but most are either right on the limit or smaller.
I'm sticking to the soft baits but pretty much any method should be successful right now.
With the amount of juveniles around, squid is a good bait choice for this time of year.
If you are using soft baits, you can't go wrong with Gulp! Alive four inch pumpkin seed minnows or five inch jerk shads in the nuclear chicken or sapphire shine patterns.
I've trialled a whole host of other baits recently with very little success.
Keep an eye out for a product called Slam, which is due to hit the market soon and is being touted as a rival to the Berkley's Gulp! range.
If you're using the shorter baits, make sure your jig heads match. Shorter jig heads in the 3/0 range that are heavy enough to get to the bottom in deep water can be hard to find, but they are out there.
When selecting jig heads, don't get sucked in by colour or glowing eyes for attracting fish. More important is hook size and sharpness and the ribbing that fastens the soft bait.
My own tackle box is littered with beautiful-looking jigheads that are never likely to get wet as they simply don't hold the baits on well enough.
Weekend Marine - section C
