Whangarei/Tutukaka - December 2009

Let the good times roll!

Eru Wilson with a substanctial hapuku taken wide of the Poor Knights Islands.

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However, on good-weather days the fishing has been great, the central harbour producing good catches of pannie snapper, particularly on the outgoing tide, while the Rip area at the entrance fished well during the first two hours of incoming tide.

There are quite a few good trevally throughout the harbour, and schools of baitfish have started showing up with feeding kahawai and birds in attendance. Bream Bay, the Ruakaka and Waipu River mouth areas have provided reasonable snapper fishing, but sometimes it has taken a bit of moving around to find the fish.

Out a little deeper over the sand, Black Magic ‘Tarakihi Terror’ rigs were catching good numbers of gurnard, especially around and out beyond the Fairway Buoy. The same rigs have worked just as well for tarakihi off the Old Woman, out off Tutukaka and Kauri Mountain Beach. A big plus is that these rigs considerably reduce the barracouta catches (although the ‘snakes’ don’t seem to be as bad this year).

As early as late October, snapper were just starting to show signs of roe and were very hungry; this will continue into December, and is a prime time to go soft-baiting. Catching big hungry snapper on light rods over the sand throughout Bream Bay is great fun, and as 99% of the fish will be mouth-hooked you can be selective, keeping only the best eating specimens and carefully releasing the bigger breeding fish.

A lot of schooling snapper are accompanied by birds (although not always) and are easy to find. Schools will be scattered throughout Bream Bay. This is a hot time, with plenty of kingfish action in the same areas; hook one on a soft-bait outfit and you are in for a torrid time!

To add to the good-news theme, barracouta numbers should be considerably reduced, the tarakihi will still be biting well, with gurnard and trevally present too, the weather will be much improved, and our summer holidays will be here. Yahoo!

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