Winter is probably my favourite time to go fishing. The weather is more settled, there are less boats on the water and the fish are usually larger. While June is one of the harder months to find fish in the gulf, if you go out wider there are fish to be found.
The weather window on Wednesday day made for a great day on the water with lots of sun and little wind. Whilst the snapper fishing was average for us the big trevally made up for it (we managed 6 and they were hitting us near or on the bottom).
Lots of rat kings were also in attendance chasing the large bait schools NW of Channel Island. We also caught pannie snapper up to 52cm, KY, gurnard and shark so the bait had heaps of predators feeding on them. Bite was bang on 11.30am – 1.30pm as per Lethals bite time!
We also used Zman Softbaits which work really well in winter on the tentative snapper as their metabolism slows down (The old watermelon lizard seemed to be the favourite today catching the biggest snapper). Looking forward to the next couple of months fishing out this way and around Great Barrier, Cuvier and the Mokes!
Cheers Nik (Snap) snapfishingventures.com
C