Left te Atatu boat ramp at 1pm with a couple of old school mates . Decided to head down the Coro Rail looking for bait and workups (straight down the Motuihe channel toward the end of the Moehau).
The area was absolutely packed with bait and sporadic gannet workups. We watched a workup go for about 15mins while we caught a few pannies around 45cm. Tried Jigs but the softbaits were getting smashed on the drop while the jigs did not get touched. We moved over to the virgin workup (no other boats around) and started our drift right in close so that we drifted down the exhaust (wind and tide on our side). We all dropped at the same time with 2oz weights and Zmans on 5/0 worm hooks (old school)…there were pichards all around the boat avoiding the predators and scales everywhere. Boom, Boom Boom…three way hookups and screaming reels before we hit the bottom.
We started filling the bin with 50-60cm fish on one good drift obviously we had the exhaust now drifting with us under the boat. After about a Kilometre we went back to the same spot and finished up.
Heading home around 4pm with huge smiles on our faces and full bins.
I think we are in for a bumper year and hope to be catching these fish closer in at around 20mtrs soon!