Full moon frenzy—and what a frenzy it’s been!

The lead-up to the full moon fired things up, especially in the workups. Even inshore, where conditions can be sluggish right now with sea temps dropping fast, there have still been flurries providing even shoreline anglers with blissful opportunities. If you’ve got a rod handy, now’s the time to use it.

While beaches are filled with walkers, dogs, and families soaking up the best of the Kiwi lifestyle (isn’t it great?), casting a little silvery lure at varied retrieval speeds has brought success to many city-based anglers this past week—whether along peninsulas or busy shorelines. Including blissful GPS-controlled long-line fishing, it’s a great way to wile away a few hours on a fine winter’s day!

And how’s this weirdness? Kahawai feeding hard-out on anchovies, the water thick with fish, and yet—so many dropped hook-ups. Why? It’s bizarre. When kahawai are in a feeding frenzy you’d expect instant solid hookups, but a fellow angler had nine straight hookups slip away in a row. Hooks? Razor-sharp. Technique? Solid. So what’s going on—full moon spook, perhaps?

Interestingly, even when kahawai are swarming thick in the water, they can be oddly selective—not just about lure size but also about colour. Several regular kahawai hunters I’ve spoken with say white has outperformed silver repeatedly. A surprising trend. What’s your take on that?

Kahawai: the underrated king of the table

Let’s dwell on kahawai—not just for their impressive fight and relative abundance, but for their phenomenal eating quality. Recent dishes I’ve been experimenting with have left friends and family seriously impressed. The flavour, texture, and quality have been astonishingly good—so much so that our much-loved snapper has taken a back seat.

I’ll be diving deeper into this in upcoming reports, and there’s a cunning plan in the works. Once the water temps drop even further, it’s game on—hot and spicy home-cooked feasts that will send taste buds into overdrive. (How’s yours right now?) And just to challenge the old “lures don’t work at anchor” idea, I’ll be testing that out too—watch this space!

The chill vs the thrill—winter’s fishing temptation

Let’s be honest—getting up at a ‘normal’ time in this cold weather is no easy feat. The house is cold, the shower doesn’t appeal, and the warm duvet is far more inviting. But the rewards? Winter’s crisp, clear, stunning days are absolutely worth it.

Take last night, for example. Driving past the local beach just before dusk—an hour before high tide—I thought, why not? A few casts with a little microjig on my trusty two-piece soft-bait rod (always kept in the ute, like an American might keep a rifle in the movies across the cab rear window), and boom—hookups on feisty kahawai! To my delight—and the dog walkers’—it was sea to plate, just like that.

An hour later? The best meal in town, served fresh at home (yours?!). What a wonderful place we live in, ay?

BAIT FREE Lure Secrets Seminar at Gulf Harbour – heads up!

📍 Thursday July 27, Gulf Harbour Yacht Club

🕔 Doors open 5pm, light dinner available from 6pm

🎣 40-minute seminar starts at 7:30pm

Come along and you’ll find out:

• The No.1 key feature for catching fish on all lures
• What fish really see in the demo tank – a real eye-opener
• The top 2 techniques – easy, and instant
• The best colour to use, and more…

It’s free, non-members welcome – don’t miss out!

Lots of tiddler snapper are rushing in on slow jigs which can be frustrating, so here are a couple of things worth trying if this happens to you:

• Use a jig with no flasher material, as this is often all the little ones are after.
• Try a jig slightly larger. Start with your usual 20–30g microjig, but keep changing it, going up in size/weight until the snapper stop attacking it. Then drop back down a size. The aim is to use the biggest jig they’ll still strike—this can really help upsize the snapper being caught.

Back to the workups—thumping in at 50m. You shouldn’t need to go past Anchorite depths if you’re out chasing the dragon. Left or right at the mid-ground, just follow nature’s signs. No place for sliding slow jigs—go big jigs for big snapper and kingfish. Lots of whales around, so keep an eye out. Easy and epic!

Enjoy!

Captain Espresso

www.fishingcoachpro.com