Easter is to me, synonymous with the beginning of the huge concentrated Autumn workups. Sure Easter was early this year, but the workups have not started as per usual and it is now April 11th. I believe this is due to the warmer weather and therefore the sea temps being around 20-22 degrees Celsius. The good news is that there is bait for Africa out there at the moment, and the last couple of trips out, I have seen huge schools of KY and Skippies throughout the Gulf. This means the gannets are lazy and don’t need to go far for a feed.
I believe that the sea temps should drop a few degrees over the next few weeks and these annual workups should start again soon and run throughout May and maybe even June?
Anyway, this is what we have been up to at Snap Fishing Ventures over the last couple of weeks. There are 2 areas we have been working to find the snapper.
One is the 50mtrs squiggles between Little Barrier and Channel Island. This area has offered some good fishing with lots of pannies in the 35-45cm range with the occasional larger specimen showing up. We have been drifting these areas with both Jitterbugs and Sliders and the new 140gr Sliders have been very successful when the drift is fast. Best colours have been Candy apple, but I have also tried the red skirts on the other Jitterbug colours like pink and Leopard with great success.
The second place I have been fishing which has produced larger Snapper and the odd good sized Trevally has been a large area in 44-46mtrs about 3nm west of Fantail Bay over at the Coromandel.
We have done huge drifts (3nm north) and hit patches of good fish throughout this area. They appear to be feeding on the bottom and they are full of crabs and other crustaceans and shells. This is the area that the workups usually start in and the snapper are obviously here and waiting!
Look forward to some mean workup fishing soon…see you out there!
Cheers Capt. Snap (Nik)
Snap Fishing Ventures
“Nothing ventured nothing gained”
http://snapfishingventures.com/
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