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.

CeeJ wrote on Apr 25^th, 2021 at 1:49pm:


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!

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.

And no messy fish to clean.