Horsey girls on slow-jigs

Coromandel Snapper

KANE WRIGGLESWORTH

Red cod, spiny dogfish, barracouta, and the rarer but welcome kahawai, are all that stopped me from scaling the walls and going into massive fishing withdrawal symptoms while surfcasting in my home area of Hawkes Bay.

We’d had a real winter here, with constant weather systems bringing big dumps of rain and pushing in large ocean swells to batter and reshape our local coastline. So the decision was made to escape from the winter doldrums of Hawkes Bay and head up to the top of the Coromandel for a bit of mid-winter snapper hunting. I was to meet up with a mate of mine, Warren (Wazza), in Coro town and head up to Fletchers Bay for some great winter snapper action.

Wazza had all the options covered. Whether on the rocks or by boat in his Stabi’ 409, we were going to have a good few days’ fishing, providing the weather gods allowed. As for me, I had brought enough bait and berley to feed an army of hungry snapper – but little was I to know, we were soon to discover how well our artificial arsenal could produce the goods – and in a somewhat more exciting fashion, too.

We arrived at our accommodation at Fletchers Bay and quickly unloaded the arsenal, bedding and tucker, before selecting our afternoon’s fishing location.

The sea was rough, with a ferocious northerly wind whipping it up, bringing a good two metres of swell into the north-facing shoreline of Fletchers. Not a good start, but we weren’t too concerned. Packing in a 15kg block of berley and a couple of kilos of pillies, we set off for the northernmost point for an arvo of rock fishing.

Now, descending this cliff to the jagged rocks below ain’t for the faint-hearted. What with ratty pieces of rope attached to standards set into the hard ground and sheer drops, you certainly need your wits about you. Good footwear is essential.

Once down on a high ledge out of the large swells that were battering and washing the reef below, we began to berley up. With only a few pillies, we were hoping to snare a good kahawai for fresh bait. Kahawai-slab baits work well here and can handle being picked to death by the brat pack for longer.

Fortunately, it didn’t take long before we had kahawai in the berley trail and hooked up. First fish up for me on my Shimano Torium 30 reel and Offshore Rock Rod was a nice fat kahawai, soon followed by a pan snapper. Things had started well, but we had left our start rather late, so didn’t have much time to play with.

Add to that the way the swell ripped our berley-filled onion sack to shreds, and all we managed to feed were a few maomao and some fat seagulls as the berley drifted out to sea.

But hey, it was a starting point, and we were finally into fishy water in the mighty Coromandel. Tomorrow would fare better.

The next day we decided to launch Wazza’s Stabi’. After a few launching glitches (getting stuck in the soft sand), we were out fishing, but again the mad dog nor’wester was making us uncomfortable and wearing us down reasonably quickly.

Even so, we sat it out near Square Top Island, berleying up and straylining tasty pilly baits back in the current, and it didn’t take too long to start picking up a few nice, fat pannies. Wazza set the benchmark with a lovely bronze kelpie of 3kg, which we soon despatched for tea.

But the fishing soon slowed as we hadn’t brought enough berley, and the sea began to kick up worse. I even had to call out to that fulla named Ralph! Sod this! We’d still got a few days up our sleeve and the forecast was for improving conditions, so we upped pick and headed for dry land.

After swamping the boat on the shore because the wind and swell had picked up (so cheers to the friendly local with a tractor, who dragged the boat clear up the beach), we started planning the next day’s mission.
Bloody weather!

Well, who’d be a forecaster? Sou’westers 15 to 20 knots? More like 30 to 40 knots! As keen as we were to head out in the boat, we weren’t keen on getting a hiding again.

However, we had been joined in our accommodation by five keen Auckland fishos – a blokes’ away weekend – and they had dragged their tinnies and an inflatable (along with some bottles) to do some fishing.

Consequently, two boats had made an early departure, while the others, I suspect, had sore heads from the night before. Even so, we still decided to play it safe and do another day on the bricks.

We clambered down to a sheltered spot named Bum Bay (apparently the bay looks like a set of buttocks!) and set about berleying from a ledge. The first two hours were a little slow and livies were impossible to catch, so we were hoping to draw big Mama Cass out of the weeds. I had almost given up hope, when snapper began to appear in the berley trail. Not large fish, but nice eaters of 1-2kg. Sight-fishing for snapper off the rocks is certainly a thrill for someone who usually surfcasts, flicking baits to the unseen prey.

In quick time I had cubed some pillies to feed ‘em up, then sent a cube down with a nasty surprise – and this was quickly engulfed by a nice 2kg snap.

As for Wazza, he’d headed around the corner with some pillies and was unaware of what had finally shown in the berley. In no time I had five nice pannies in my rock pool before Wazza returned to dispatch two more himself.

I ended the day by whipping out a couple more before our berley emptied and the light faded. It was time to head back out under a magnificent sunset with a full moon rising at the same time.

We returned to camp to find that our Jafa friends had fared reasonably well too, taming snapper to 6kg, the bulk of which had fallen to slow-jigs.Well, I must say, I was a bit sceptical of the slow-jigs, but after seeing those results and experiencing our next two days of fishing, I quickly became a slow-jig convert!

Thank god Wazza brought the Stabi’ up and we’d had the good sense to bring some slow-jigs with us.

As we were slow-jig virgins, we asked the Jafas for advice on water depths and the kind of terrain to fish.

“Try 30 to 45 metres over the sand, and drift-fish with a sea anchor to slow your drift when covering an area, then repeat,” they told us.

With that advice and a better forecast, we went about heading to the 35-metre mark and dropping a Lucanus pink-white 80g lure on my Offshore baitcasting rod and Quantum Energy reel spooled with Power-pro 10lb braid. Wazza’s weapon was an Offshore Illusion soft-plastic rod fitted with Daiwa Sol 3000 reel and Matrix 10lb braid and a Daiwa Pirate gold-orange 100g jig.

It only took two slow retrieves off the bottom for me and I was hooked up. “Yep, I’m on!” went the call. Wazza’s reply: “You’re sh##ing me!”

Soon after, up came a nice 1.5kg snap.
Now I read somewhere that when your jig is getting taken, don’t strike, just keep winding until your rod loads up nicely. That was certainly the case: snapper were consistently coming in and biting at the jig until the small assist jig hooks were driven hard into their lips and mouths.

And it wasn’t long before Wazza joined in on the action, leading to a steady stream of snapper hammering our slow-jigs, including a nice john dory, which was certain to be that night’s dinner, along with fresh snapper fillets.

We were gob-smacked as to how well these slow-jigs were working. I’d slowly turn the handle on the Quantum about six revolutions, then free-spool/drop to the bottom and repeat. Wazza varied it a bit, with slow lifts of the rod and small short winds, but always keeping the lure close to the bottom, creating sediment disturbance and catching the attention of fish.

We ended up binning a dozen nice snapper to 4kg, which was plenty for us, and released many more. We were keen to save our energy for the next day, as it was to be a big one!

On a high from the day before and champing at the bit to get back into the action, we launched at 6:30am – earlier than the previous days – and set about deploying the drogue and dropping our slow-jigs to the bottom.

It didn’t take Wazza long to hook up, this time using a Crazy Charlie 80g slow-jig, while I bounced my 80g green Lucanus, getting a few touches but not connecting. Wazza boated four snapper before I finally hooked my first, but it was worth the wait, as my Offshore rod loaded up on a nice, scrappy 4kg fish.

After boating that and taking a couple of pics, I dropped the jig again and, within seconds, the rod folded over, braided line peeling from my Quantum reel. A lively tussle ensued, but eventually I managed to get the frisky fish under control. However, I was still taken aback when a very nice 7kg snapper breached the surface, followed by the verdict, “Horsey girl!” – a term we coined to describe anything rather wild, strong and hard to tame. And, soon after, Wazza hooked another scrappy 4kg-plus snapper, so we were on fire.

Continuing to drift over 35 to 40 metres of water heading towards Square Top Island, we spotted a work-up close to Square Top. Having tamed the snapper on the Lucanus, I was keen to throw a few soft-plastics under the chattering mutton birds.

Sure enough, as soon as my soft-bait hit the bottom, the fish were into it. Fat pannies, blue cod – it was all on – including a PB soft-plastic snapper of 4kg. However, while soft-baits certainly have their place, the slow-jigs were the standout performers that day.

Then, upon shifting out to 45-50 metres, the results were the same, with the slow-jigs consistently getting hammered. In just a few hours we found we’d bagged our limit of fish in the 3kg to 7kg bracket, and had also extended our species list to include gurnard, barracouta and a neat thresher shark! I hadn’t experienced fishing like it before – this was insane. And it was great to release some brilliant, healthy-sized fish, too.

Even so, despite the great slow-jigging results, I was determined to at least use some of the bait we had brought up with, so set about putting half pillies on a 1oz jig head. Oh man! It was like shooting fish in a barrel: whoompa, without fail – more 3kg and 4kg snapper! I even got Wazza using this technique with outstanding success.

“The boys from Auckland wouldn’t approve of this,” Wazza exclaimed. But I actually don’t think that matters.

The great thing here was that we were adopting different techniques for our arsenal, adding another trick to try next time we venture out.

Then, with arms that were beginning to ache and the bin swollen to capacity, it was time to call it a day and reminisce on some great fishing on the Coromandel.

We’ll be back again next winter, leaving behind distant memories of red cod and sharks to chase ‘horsey girls’ on slow-jigs in Coromandel.

- © Fairfax NZ News