Drifting at sea not all bad
Snap to it in boat — if you catch my drift . . .
Drifting over pinnacles is producing a lot of fish and with today’s electronics it is not hard finding such structures. The key to this approach is to work out the course of the boat’s drift in relation to wind and tide, so a couple of practice runs before dropping gear is a good idea.
The object is to drift along the side of a pin or reef, rather then directly over it as smaller fish tend to congregate on the top of rocky structures while the larger specimens are found along the edge where the rock meets the sand. And they will more likely be on the side where the currents hits the structure.
When drifting baits you want your line angle from the rod to the water to be about 45 degrees. Any less and your bait will head too fast down to the reef and likely snag. With more of an angle your baits will be surfboarding away from the reef and the fish.
Streamlined baits are best for drifting including bigger squid/ pilchard combos (arrow up skirt down), pillies, sprats, small whole mackerel and piper. The favourite baits for big fish are livies including jack mackerel and piper.
When hooking your baits have your barbs well exposed, with a hitch to hold each hook in place and then two hitches to hold the sinker to the bait. That last double hitch is important as it’s the tow point for your bait, maintaining the streamline effect. Imagine placing the two hooks in the bait and throwing it over the side. Your bait ends up spinning like a propeller and tangling other lines.
Attaching your ball sinker to the bait also reduces tangles from your sinker sinking first and your bait catching main line. It also gives you much more feel along your line on the drop, as any taps on your line will be one of two things — the bottom (wind in quick) or an interested fish.
Baits should be dropped quickly until near the bottom, and then slowed as fish will often swim up to intercept what appears to be a bait fish heading for the safety of the bottom. With a constant gentle touch of your thumb on the line spooling out you are in touch with your bait, ready for any change which can signal a bite.
When you hit the bottom raise the rod to avoid snagging, wind in a few metres and drop again by slowly spooling out. The goal is to present your bait in its most natural form.
Snapper have evolved over millions of years with two distinct features. Bone crushing jaws and large powerful eyes. Often big snapper see the baits from their lowlying positions and swim up through the water column to intercept them. The added pressure on your line confirms this. It’s easy to lose fish here, as most anglers strike only to say later “Oh, he spat the hook.” But as far as he is concerned that bait of yours is alive and he has to kill it before he eats it. So he’s crushing it in his mouth and some clever angler strikes too soon and pulls the bait and hooks out of his mouth. In the mean time the snapper is cleaning up the loose bits.
When the line starts to run out with a suspected fish wait at least five seconds before striking to allow time for the fish to chew the bait before he starts to swallow it. Often in the winter you need to wait longer as the snapper may pick the bait up, drop it, and then pick it up again.
A good guide is to allow five seconds or longer and then gently add some thumb pressure to the reel and gently raise the rod. If your rod starts to bend and pressure loads up, click it into gear and wind four times quickly and then strike. This winding takes the bow out of the line and some of the stretch, giving a much better hook-up rate. If the rod does not bend, so as not to spook the fish slowly keep drifting your bait as the snapper may return for another look.
With the fish well hooked let your rod do the work. Maintain a constant bend in the rod and using a smooth action with your rod constantly bent allows your reel’s drag to work more efficiently. If he wants to take line and run, then stop winding and let your bent rod maintain pressure. Freshwater Reports of fresh-run trout in the Tongariro and other Lake Taupo rivers suggest the rain which accompanied last week’s cyclone triggered the first spawning runs, but they are early and fish numbers will be low.
More rain will help, but fishing the rips where the rivers run into the lake will be the spot for the next couple of months — large, deep rips during the day and on tonight’s full moon and smaller rips in the dark of night when the moon has gone.