Manukau / Auckland West Coast

fishing report

June 4, 2020

Supplied by

Scotty Warrender's manukau Harbour snapper tips

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

Standing in for Smudge this week, a couple of his mates, Gerald Muir and friends, who have put together a nice informative video interviewing highly regarded Manukau harbour expert Scotty Warrender.

Looking at the week ahead, wind from the west favours later in the week

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Scotty has just pulled a very nice 14+ pound snapper out of the harbour, no mean feat, and we hear that if you want to target snapper in the Manukau, you could do a lot worse than listen to some good advice from him.

You don’t necessarily have to cross the bar to get onto a decent feed, which is comforting as we head into winter and the conditions are often a bit sketchy out west. The harbour can still rough up, but it’s a lot safer (especially in smaller boats) as long as you still have all the right safety gear on board.

There are a few hints and tips for targeting snapper in the harbour. How does Scotty do it?

Check out the video for a few insights into the best tidal conditions, tackle, rigs, gear, bait, burley flavours and more!

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These are not Scotty's secret spots by the way! But worth a crack

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Good luck out there and stay safe.

Smudge and the team

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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!