Summer’s knocking alright! It’s heating up and the fish are on the chew.

Just like the soaring air temps, sea temps are well up with a stunning start to summer, and some fish species are on the chew big time, while others are taking a well-earned break.

Like blue marlin dumping line off your spool at breakneck speed, the runaway train of the workup frenzy in the Hauraki Gulf has had the brakes put on a little more lately and spread out over wider areas from Tiri to Kawau, out towards Horn Rock and Gt Barrier and over in the upper Firth areas.

Kingfish have maintained a relatively consistent bite through the current Super-moon, the snapper have been typically variable however. Baitfish are swarming all over the place anywhere they can get on with their breeding and feeding without such relentless bombardment from above and below. The inner gulf of 40m chart depth is the place to generally drift fish for snapper, alternatively good snapper are being caught already in the Waitemata harbour – Tamaki Strait has been fishing well for many already.

Skipjack tuna are well offshore but swimming towards us every day, in tow their predators including mahi mahi and marlin. It is only a matter of a very short time before the front running marlin show themselves off the transom. I would expect a good start, especially from those big blue marlin, the clock is ticking.

Kahawai absence? Lately yes, but perhaps the sights of them surface feeding along southern Gt Barrier is where so many went recently, you could walk on them. Wow and I mean WOW!

What has the super-moon brightness, very strong tidal flows and sea temps up into the spawning range meant for fishing?

 The past week really did put the breaks on in terms of the previous few weeks of feasting and productive workup fishing. So with hot days and good weather there’s lots of time to enjoy the true variety out there, swimming, SUPs, salt fly, big kings on jigs out wide, kayaks at dawn, drift fishing open areas, JD hunting with little livies…the list of ways we can enjoy each day out there is long, and no doubt you can add many more.

Snapper can be up higher in the water column when breeding is on the agenda as it is now, so remember to actively fish up 20m in 40m, you’ll be surprised and think ‘must be a kahawai’, when no, a snapper has hooked up on the retrieve of your lure. Slow pitch/fluttering jigs and inchukus are great for this, but don’t retrieve fast like a mechanical jig as they can spiral and put fish off biting, slowly with pauses and small drop backs on the way up can add good fish to the tally.

Perhaps you do well fishing the full moon? Or not? Superstition or physics, either way the fishing in general should improve significantly over the next few days.

Time to get out there and enjoy our little patch of paradise.

Espresso.

 

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