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Thanks for your posts Dave! what do you think about the inner harbour for big snapper? I have heard about bigger ones allegedly caught further up e.g. by Skull Creek. Apparently you should fish on the flat not in the channels because the food in on the flats so that's where the fish are? Would have expected if there is larger snapper there then they would get caught from time to time going in and out of the harbour.
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davflaws
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Cheers Dav - I actually wondered for quite a long time whether the 'indeterminate' meant inability to sex a fish through being juvenile (because of size)
Kia ora SF. Snapper become sexually mature at around 25cm, so the ones I can't sex are not indeterminate through size. They are seasonal spawners so there is a period after spawning and before they start to "roe up" for next season when the gonads are empty.
I watched my son Adam catch a 73cm snapper on a handline when he had barely started school. Fortunately it was between the boat and a shallow estuary and had nowhere to run to and came to the boat really easily. He wasn't strong enuff to swing it aboard, but I helped. That sort of memory stays with you!
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Thanks for your posts Dave! what do you think about the inner harbour for big snapper? I have heard about bigger ones allegedly caught further up e.g. by Skull Creek. Apparently you should fish on the flat not in the channels because the food in on the flats so that's where the fish are? Would have expected if there is larger snapper there then they would get caught from time to time going in and out of the harbour.
Quite a lot of people take big snapper out of shallow water in the Inner Harbour at night in summer, but the locals "in the know" seem to be able to catch them all year round. Snapper are up on the flats and banks at night, but in my experience with Mair Bank and McDonald Bank, they don't go into water that shallow with no cover during the day.
I think the lack of big snapper caught on their way in and out of the harbour is probably about sampling (there are lots more pannies than big ones, and pannies move more) and bait size. Another local used to fish the inner channel about ten years ago, and he caught 10 pound fish quite often, but he always used a whole jack on a double hook rig.
Sunday inner channel in the middle of the day Burley and squid on med gear in 6m - 90 min 1 hit 1 legal snapper
Snapper 30 recently spawned male.
Monday - Sulphur Pt at the Chicks. Remaining burley and squid on med gear in 20m for an hour and a bit after an hour trolling for tuna from just outside the Chicks up towards the PK and back. Lotsa small snapper but nothing binned. An absolutely mint day!
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Re: Whangarei Heads Reply #1025 - May 5th, 2021 at 9:55pm
Out to Sail Rock this morning and fished in 20m on the N side through most of a tidal cycle. Home late afternoon with 12 pannies and a couple of humungous Kahawai. Berley for Africa (the Salty Dog 5 kg all fish bomb works out at $3 per kilo) and squid plus a koheru livie which kept having the bejesus scared out of it by big kahawai but no kingis turned up.
Absolutely a "die happy" day. Big meatballs on the way out with sooty shearwaters and gannets and dolphins all feeding in a frenzy. Nothing would take a smiths jig or a squid skirt around them or a softbait or kabuki thingie under them.
But the snapper at Sail Rock bit steadily once we sussed that anything with a sinker would snag and so tossed unweighted baits well back in the berley. Mainly undersized (just), but the 7/0 mutsus, and staying in touch with the bait straylining meant that everything but the Kahawai was lip hooked
So I've been fishing for nearly seventy years and fishing for snapper for more than fifty - and I keep getting surprised. Tonight I went out in the dinghy with a mate to the W point of McKenzie Bay to fish the inner channel in 6m from 5.30 -6.30. Last of the flood. Berley and squid.
I usually use a 7/0 mutsu on a metre of trace with a sliding ball around 1/4 oz. Over the years I have sussed that that is the rig that works best with the tide running in shallow water.
But tonight I found myself with no tacklebox, and my only rod was rigged with a single hook on the end of the mainline, with no trace and no weight (see previous post re Sail Rock). So I tossed unweighted baits back in the berley. And outfished my mate 5:1. Virtuously quit before the fish did.
Snapper 42, 40, 39, 35, 32, 30 all indeterminate, but fat.
Winter is finally over. For me it has been a shit one - pretty much crippled with my left knee, and just as bad even after surgery until I finally "heard" that if I stayed "off it" and did no weight bearing for a couple of months it would heal. It did.
And last night did the first trip in the dory for nearly six months. Inner channel at Urquharts Bay in 6m between 6.45 and 8.30. Middle of the ebb. Berley and squid on med gear. Fed a few small snapper all night. First was 31cm and my Grandson insisted it was Tangaroa's and put it back. Thereafter nothing even worth a measure. Cold - but really nice to be out on the water again.
A minor miracle on the retrieve. Half ebb and bacl to the beach too far to the east, so I set off over oystery rocks in the dark to get the trailer, while the "crew" waded the dory along the shallows. No fool like an old fool. Tripped over a rock and fell forward onto my outstretched hands. somehow managed to break my fall without making contact with a single oyster. No cuts, a few minor bruises but no knee damage. Just pride.