Manukau / Auckland West Coast

fishing report

February 7, 2020

Supplied by

Manukau Harbour

Note: If map is showing it is created by LINZ / New Zealand Hydrographic Authority and made available by Creative Commons 3.0. Maps should not be used for navigation

Ed note: A south-west swell of up to 2 metres this weekend is going to make it pretty nasty heading out over the bar, so it may be a better option to stay in the harbour or hit the east coast wide if chasing game fish. Later in the week around Thursday is looking much better even if that’s not playing ball with public holidays. We had some reports of good snapper in quite shallow in the harbour taking soft baits in the brighter orange colours only yesterday. A couple of fish up to 50cm so not too bad at all. Here’s a brief update from Smudge for all those thinking of heading west this weekend.

I’ve just got home after fishing day one of the three day Counties Classic comp. with almost $100k up for grabs it is worth putting some time in.

We had a great plan but that plan didn’t quite work for us. We caught snapper to around 1.5kg in the Papakura Channel. Less that a kilometer away a 4kg jobbie was caught.

So we tried for a kingfish. All we caught was a whiff of a dead cow on the beach.

We tried for trevally and although we dipped out, a very respectful 2,57kg fish was caught and that took out the trev prizes for the day.

The only fish to beat the harbour categories was a striped marlin which out on a rough day was no mean feat!

So there you have it. The harbour is rather hard to fish at the moment but there are good fish there. It just requires a little patience. While those of us who persevered in the harbour today found it a little tough, we still managed some decent fish.

There is a lesson there – deeper is not always better & sometimes the fish are closer than you think!

A couple more weeks will most likely see a huge improvement in the harbour and right now it’s not too shabby at all.

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Good luck out there and stay safe.

Smudge.

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This Manukau / Auckland west coast report is supplied by Michael "Smudge" Parker and supports the Counties Sportfishing Club

For more information on the Counties Sportfishing Club visit its website here.

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Previous reports

January 19, 2024

Expect an increase in active fishing opportunities, with abundant snapper in the harbour post-spawning, along with kingfish, trevally, and kahawai, while flounder and grey mullet also offer rewarding catches, either through netting or spearing, amidst various fishing methods and local regulations.

January 11, 2024

Fishing in the Manukau Harbour is yielding a mix of small and larger snapper, with kingfish and trevally also present, while offshore fishing shows promise for marlin and albacore, indicating a potentially good game fishing season ahead.

June 30, 2023

As a part of Countries Sport Fishing Club, I get to help organise some of our fishing competitions. Mostly I’m involved in the Grunter Hunter – a gurnard only comp that regularly attracts 300 or more anglers all hoping to get some of the prizemoney on offer.

June 2, 2023

June 1, 2023

It has certainly been an unusual year. Like everyone else I would have expected a whole lot more settled weather over autumn, and now that winter is finally here, I would have expected to have seen a whole lot more cooler weather.

April 27, 2023

March 10, 2023

It has been a long time between reports, my apologies for that but it isn’t always easy to get a decent report out. I recently met up with a Fishing World reader – Gareth from West Coast Boat Wraps. I have seen his work and it is pretty good stuff.

April 27, 2023

November 3, 2022

It’s been a long time between reports for me, which is a bit naughty especially as I’ve done my share of fishing lately. The ever reliable west coast hasn’t let us down and it seldom does in springtime. One recent trip had some hectic fishing on baits and jigs for some very good fish up to 8kg, then a couple of weeks later with a new fishfinder/chartplotter with no marks whatsoever saved we repeated that trick in even faster time despite just stopping in a random spot in 58m. The difference was in the size of the fish, nothing over 3kg, but that isn’t a bad thing at all.

September 9, 2022

The weather hasn’t been kind enough to tempt me out fishing lately but to make up for that I’m going somewhere this weekend that everyone should try to fish at some stage of their life, the Ranfurly Banks. While that has nothing to do with fishing the Manukau harbour and surrounds at least I’ll be looking forward to some more leisurely snapper and gurnard fishing when I get back after putting up with those big arm stretching fish down East Cape way!

July 8, 2022

Winter fishing, why do we do it? It’s always cold, often raining and usually a combination of the two. It can also be quite productive. My son Arron and I spent last weekend fishing the CSFC.co.nz Ice Breaker competition. We targeted snapper & gurnard in the Manukau harbour.

June 10, 2022

We fished the Sunday of Queens Birthday weekend for the CSFC & Franklin Hunting & Fishing Grunter Hunter. Saturday was a perfect day and some very nice snapper came out of the harbour, plus a few gurnard.

June 2, 2022

The annual Grunter Hunter comp is on this weekend folks!