Frenzied fishing, our stunning kahawai & bait-free seminar secrets coming up!

Full Moon Frenzy—And What a Frenzy It’s Been!

Winter long-lining, a great way to enjoy our backyard fishing paradise.

The lead-up to this full moon fired things up, especially in the workups. Even inshore, where conditions are sometimes sluggish right now with that sea temp dropping fast there have still been flurries providing even shoreline anglers with blissful opportunities. If you’ve got a rod handy, now’s the time to use it. While beaches are filled with walkers, dogs, and families soaking up the best of the Kiwi lifestyle (isn’t it great), casting a little silvery lure at varied retrieval speeds has brought success to many city-based anglers this past week—whether along peninsulas or busy shorelines, north shore bays, eastern bays. Including blissful GPS-controlled long-lines, a great way to wile away a few hours on a winter’s day, using bait and lures - a bet both ways, a great idea. And how’s this for lunacy - kahawai feeding hard-out on anchovies, the water thick with fish, and yet—so many dropped fish on a cast lure. Why? It’s bizarre.

Our No.1 mistake when fishing with lures, and the fix!

When the kahawai are in a feeding frenzy you’d expect instant solid hookups, but a fellow angler had nine straight hook-ups that slipped away in a row.

Hooks? Razor-sharp. Technique? Solid. So, what’s going on? That full moon spook, perhaps. Interestingly, even when kahawai are swarming and thick in the water, they can be oddly selective—not just about lure size but also about colour. Several regular kahawai hunters I’ve spoken with have noticed that white has outperformed silver, repeatedly. A surprising trend. What’s your take on that?

Kahawai: The Underrated King of the Table

I want to dwell more on kahawai—not just for their impressive fight and relative abundance, but for their phenomenal eating quality. Recent dishes experimented with have left friends and family seriously impressed. The flavor, texture, and quality have been astonishingly good—so much so that our much-loved snapper has taken a back seat. I’ll be diving deeper into this in upcoming reports, and there’s a cunning plan in the works. Once the water temps drop even further, it’s game on—hot and spicy home-cooked feasts that will send taste buds into overdrive. (How’s yours right now?) And just to challenge the old “lures don’t work at anchor” comment, I’ll be testing that out too—watch this space!

Sea to plate, exquisite taste, kahawai a worthy winter prize!

The Chill vs. The Thrill—Winter’s Fishing Temptation

Let’s be honest getting up at ‘normal’ times in this cold weather is no easy feat. The house is cold, the shower doesn’t appeal, and the warm duvet is far more inviting. But the rewards? Winter’s crisp, clear, stunning days are absolutely worth it.

Take last night, for example. Driving past the local beach just before dusk—an hour before high tide—I thought, why not? A few casts with a little micro jig on my trusty two-piece soft-bait rod (always kept in the ute, like an American might keep a rifle in the movies across the cab rear window), and boom—hookups on feisty kahawai! To my delight—and the dog walkers'—it was sea to plate, just like that.

An hour later? The best meal in town, served fresh at home (yours?!). What a wonderful place we live in, ay?

BAIT FREE Lure Secrets Seminar at GULF HARBOUR Heads Up!

Thursday July 24. Gulf Harbour Yacht Club opens 5pm, light dinner available 6pm.

40 minute seminar starts 7:30pm

Come along and you’ll find out:

The No.1 key feature for catching fish on all lures

See what fish see in the demo tank – a real eye opener

Learn the top 2 techniques – easy, and instant

The best colour to use and more…

It’s Free, non-members welcome, don’t miss out!

Lots of tiddler snapper are rushing in on slow jigs which can be frustrating so here’s a couple of things worth trying if this is happening to you. Use a jig with no flasher material, as this is often all the little ones are after. Also try a jig slightly larger, start with a micro jig say your normal 20-30gms, but keep changing it, going up in size/weight until the snapper stop attacking it, then drop back down a size, with the aim of using the biggest jig they’ll strike at, which can really help up-size the snapper being caught.

Back to the workups – thumping in, 50m, shouldn’t have to go past Anchorite depths if you’re out chasing the dragon. Left or right at the mid-ground, just follow natures signs. No place for sliding slow jigs – go big jigs, for big snapper, and kingfish. Lots of whales around to keep an eye out for. Easy and epic!

Enjoy!