Kaipara carrot capers

Saltwater Technique

Mike Clay displays some prime carrots from the Kaipara – top table fish.

A strip of skipjack adds scent to the Snapper Snatcher’s visual appeal.

Even in winter, an ice slurry helps preserve the quality of the catch.

When spiking gurnard, come in just behind the bony head plate and angle forward.

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Fishing

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While I have never been particularly enthusiastic about gardening, I love harvesting a feed of ‘carrots’.

A possible cause for this is that the coastal waters near where I grew up in Hawkes Bay are one of New Zealand’s most prolific ‘carrot patches’. Gurnard love sedimentary bottoms so Hawkes Bay provides perfect habitat for them. There, gurnard often make up the bulk of the take-home catch and have always been a popular eating fish, preferred by many to snapper.

After moving to Auckland in the early 1980s and starting to fish on the east coast there, I found gurnard initially rare in the Hauraki Gulf; I could – literally – count on the fingers of one hand the specimens I caught in my first ten years here. Some of the ‘old blokes’ I talked to said there used to be a lot of gurnard in the gulf, but not any more. They blamed trawlers, which may have been the case (I don’t really know as it was before my time; the sliding baseline in action), but I reckon if something knocked the gurnard population down in the Hauraki Gulf, competition from the fast-breeding snapper of the region would probably suppress any rapid recovery in gurnard numbers.

Interestingly, the carrot numbers have improved a bit in the Hauraki Gulf over the last few years, and it is now common to catch one or two a day amongst the snapper. However, if you really want to target gurnard around Auckland, the hotspots are the big west coast harbours – the Manukau and the Kaipara – especially in mid-winter when most of the snapper have emptied out and the gurnard move in.

This winter run of carrots in the west coast harbours is a good option for putting a feed of tasty fish on the table in the colder months. Some anglers struggle to catch snapper at this time of year (although there are still plenty about if you use the right approach) and the harbours can offer opportunities when the open coasts are too rough to fish. You will still need to watch the weather though, as strong rips in both these harbours (especially the Kaipara) can make for poor sea conditions when the wind is against the tide.

Although they can pull a bit on very light tackle, gurnard are considered more of a table fish than a sporting proposition, and it is amazing the number of closet carrot crunchers that come out of the woodwork when the species is mentioned. A winter carrot expedition is great fun, with a change of scenery, species and technique adding to, hopefully, a plateful of succulent fillets at the end of the day.

Timing
In the Kaipara particularly, strong tidal flows rule all, dictating the timing, territory, tackle and techniques used.
The timing of your trip is controlled by the tides rather than the time of day. You need to fish over the bottom or top of the tide when the rip is least. If this is during the middle of the day, then so be it. In these turbid harbours the light levels do not seem to matter so much. The high tide is preferable, with the last hour of the incoming producing best. You will still get a few fish over the slack and the first of the run-out (especially if you have a good berley trail going), but when the tide really starts pushing hard, the fish seem to stop biting and it can be difficult to hold your bait on the bottom. Effective fishing time can be short.

Territory
Tidal flow also affects the territory you fish. In an earlier life I worked in the earth sciences field, and one of my duties was measuring water flows in rivers and estuaries. One thing that was obvious from the water velocity measurements taken was that the speed of any water current in a channel is reduced by friction; it was slower (particularly) at the edges, and also on the bottom of a channel (and, to a much lesser extent, at the surface) than in the central ‘core’ of the flow.
Fish don’t like working harder than necessary, and it stands to reason that they prefer to travel and feed where the currents are slower, given that some current is necessary to carry nutrients and support the ecosystem. The edge of a channel, where the bottom starts to shelve up, is a good default spot to start. If this coincides with a ‘choke point’, where the topography (such as a point or reef) concentrates the fish moving through a channel, so much the better.

Tackle
Strong tide runs will also play a part in tackle choice. Here technology comes to our aid with very thin-for-breaking-strain polyethylene (‘braid’) lines that cut through the current more easily than thicker monofilament nylon lines, allowing anglers to hold the bottom with less lead and use lighter tackle all round. In the slower water at the channel edges during the quieter periods of the tide, I find that a light baitcaster rig with 6kg braid, an 18kg (40lb) mono leader and a 4oz (113g) sinker is a practical rig.
Judging by the gurnard stomach contents (checking them is one reason I like to do the filleting at the end of the day), favoured food items vary little from area to area. In my old stamping grounds of Hawkes Bay, crabs and mantis shrimps feature heavily, while in the Kaipara carrots also seem to eat mostly crabs and shrimps, it is just the species and colours that change. The Hawkes Bay crabs and shrimps are a pale amber colour, while those of the Kaipara are often dark gray, matching the mud bottom there. You might think that for a fish that mostly grubs in the bottom for its prey, fishing baits hard on the bottom would be a good scheme, but over many years of gurnard fishing I have found that this is not the case.

Gurnard probably use their bony-plated head as a shovel to dig out their food. Their eyes are mounted high on the top of their head, keeping them out of the stirred-up sediment and allowing them to spot any fleeing prey item. This eye position also means gurnard have good upward vision and can spot things above them pretty well.

Help gurnard to find your hooks as much as possible. A two-hook ledger rig with hooks about 25cm and 75cm above the sinker will make it easy for the fish to find the baits waggling around in the current just above the bottom. Gurnard have no problem coming up a bit off the bottom for baits, and a decent proportion of fish will be caught on the top hook. I always add lumo beads to my droppers as a further aid to visibility.

Despite the predominance of crustaceans in their diet, my most successful cut baits for gurnard are tough salted skipjack or pilchard cubes, the oily wash running off these baits again making it easier for the carrots to find them.

I have had excellent results with soft-plastic 2” Gulp! Peeler Crabs, too. While colour is probably not crucial, down in the ‘Bay, the ‘Amber Glow’ colour is a good match for the local prey items, while in the muddy Kaipara, dark colours like ‘Molting’ or ‘Natural’ are better fits to the crab colours there. The 2” crabs tend to produce bigger gurnard than the 1” model, and fluttering in the current on a ledger rig, are a good imitation of a swimming paddle crab – a regular food item.

Adding many of the attraction factors together, Black Magic’s ‘Snapper Snatcher’ and ‘Gurnard Grabber’ rigs in 5/0, sweetened with a small strip bait of skipjack, are diabolically effective on gurnard.

Technique
In the murky Kaipara waters, scent can be more important than sight. The strong tides can be used to advantage by running a berley trail. Berleying is very effective on gurnard, but in fast tidal flows the berley needs to be released close to the bottom or it will be a million miles away and hopelessly diluted by the time it gets down to where the fish are. I tie a few dive weights totalling about 3kg to my berley bomb to prevent the current swinging it up off the bottom. Drop it down to the seabed, then lift it about half a metre before tying it off. This puts it close to the bottom, but just up in the current flow so the scent carries well.

You will only get a relatively short fishing period – maybe an hour to an hour-and-a-half – and you need to use it as efficiently as possible. Get to your spot in good time to get the anchor, berley and tackle rigging organised before peak fishing time. Minimise any re-rigging downtime with premade traces.

Short and sweet
A Sunday in late July saw us finally catch a break in the weather, and my fishing mate and neighbour Mike Clay and I headed for the Kaipara. It was a crisp, blue-sky day, but we didn’t even have to stir early from a warm bed; the top of the tide required was in the early afternoon.

In a light, but nippy southerly breeze we soon had the boat anchored on the channel edge in 10 metres with the berley down, an hour before the high. We deployed two rods each to make the most of the short fishing time. Gurnard seem to run in small groups, so more hooks in the water mean more fish in the bin. Efficient fishing can make quite a difference to the bag when the bite time is limited.

Mike has fitted his Ramco with four Scotty adjustable rod holders, gear that I favour in my own small boat. We find these devices ideal for this sort of work, allowing us to keep the rod tips well separated (reducing tangles) and at a flat angle to the water surface. Ledger rigs with 5/0 circle hooks – Black Magic K/Ls and Mustad light-gauge stainless circles – mean that the fish mostly hook themselves.

With all the preparations completed, I picked up my thermos and poured a steaming-hot cup of tea. Wrapping my hands around the cup in anticipation warmed them momentarily – but by the time I got to actually drink it, the tea had become very cold indeed…

We binned 26 gurnard over the next hour, which, allowing for the odd kahawai and small gurnard we returned, works out to about a fish every two minutes. Allowing for rebaiting and resetting rods and unhooking, spiking and icing fish, that is pretty full-on. The bite slowed over the slack of the tide, then stopped altogether when the run-out picked up. Tellingly, every local boat within eyeshot pulled the pick and headed in at almost the same time. We joined the exodus, and despite the zoo at the ramp, were home-and-hosed by mid afternoon; time for a hot coffee in anticipation of a good feed of Kaipara carrots in front of a warm fire that night. Winter isn’t so bad after all.

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