By JACK MANGROVE
ON the river the rain was also a bit of a pain – more from a comfort point of view – but the fishing was red hot
The lower reaches of the river has been where most of the action has been with the river mouth one of the hot spots for land-based anglers.
There have been some good mixed schools of trevally, and tailor moving in on the incoming tide – fast moving Micro gigs and slugs cast out with a fast retrieve have worked well when the fish are thick. Small pilchards have also produced some nice fish. There has also been some really good quality bream taken on fresh mullet strips, with the odd jew and jack on soft vibes like the Fuze Pulse and Fish Candy vibes.
In the Frying Pan, heaps of whiting and bream on live worms. Surface lures have also producing some good fish on the run out tide.
Woods Bays has seen mixed schools of trevally. Soft plastics have been producing the goods with the Squidgy Prawns, Keiteck Easy Shiners and Fuze prawn heads all coming up with the goods.
A few good size tailor being caught, surface poppers and surface walkers have been working well early morning and late afternoons.
Up on the ski runs, the water is a little murky after the rain so darker soft plastics will be the go. The stretch between Harbor Town and the ski run has produced a mixed bag including trevally, bream, jacks and the odd tailor.
With the promise of better conditions last weekend, offshore anglers where gearing up for a big weekend. You didn’t have to go far to get into some quality fish with mixed species of tuna being caught throughout Laguna Bay – throwing small metal slugs and using lightly weighted smaller soft plastics saw some great results.
Local reefs like Sunshine Reef, Halls Reef and North Reef have been producing good numbers of reef fish like snapper, pearl perch, tusk fish, trout on pilchard floaters, livies and dropper rigs. Mackeral have been caught around North Reef, Chardon’s Reef trolling hard body lures like the Samaki Pace Makers and Rapala Magiums.
Out on the Banks there are good quality snapper over the 4kg mark taken on squid and large pilchards fished hard to the bottom.
On the beach, last Saturday and part of Sunday was a bit painful with the rain, but for the public holiday Monday the heavens cleared and beach anglers were out in force.
The gutter are very plentiful at the moment bream dart, flathead and smaller tailor. Fishing a couple of hours either side of the high tide is getting the best results.
So on behalf of Jack Mangrove, best of luck on your fishing adventures.
