Just thought i would start a discussion about what people are using rig wise when targeting snapper.

When I’m out in the boat i like to have two rods out. With one I’m targeting the larger fish and the other is a lighter set up that i use to target a broader range of fish size. The first rig is the one i use to target larger snapper. It is a two hook set up with a running sinker.

At the top of the rig i make a loop that attaches to the main line via swivel and clip. The ball sinker runs free on the main line above the swivel: The total rig is about 1 metre long.

I usually bait this up with a squid tentacle, whole pilchard, strip of fresh kahawai or my favourite a fresh mackerel fillet. It pays to lower this rig to the bottom fairly slowly as it is quite easy for the for the hooks to loop back and tangle with the sinker and mainline as the sinker goes down faster than the baited hooks. The golden rule with sinkers is to use the lightest possible to get your baits down to where the fish are.

As i found the Snell Knot rather challenging to tie i have put together a quick video that shows it been tied. As you can see I’m not an expert knot tier but hopefully it helps people who might be struggling with it like i was.

The other rig i will have out is a common 2 hook dropper rig setup:

The loop at the top attaches to the mainline. Two hooks (i use smaller hooks and smaller baits than the previous rig) with lumo beads shown, i usually bait them with a thin strip of squid that will wave around in the current and look like a small bait fish. In this case i have used a kahawai lure in place of a sinker. This is great when the current isn’t so strong as it will get your baits down as well as give you another hook to catch fish on. Holding the rig just off the bottom means the lure will bounce on the sand with the swell puffing up sand and hopefully enticing a curious fish to investigate. I usually ‘sweeten’ the lures hook with a small piece of squid. I have found the kahawai lure on the bottom is good for picking up gurnard.

This rig is good as you pick up the smaller pan size snapper and we find it generally out fishes the other rig when it comes to quantities of fish caught.

Basically you use it to spike the fish in the brain, killing it instantly. I have seen through our own hit and miss attempts really mess this up and miss the brain, only having to repeat the task over and over again until you see the fish suddenly stop moving. I am a huge fan of Killing a fish as quite as possible, in fact if I intend on keeping the fish I will kill it before any high fives or photos – this is just a mark of respect I have for fish. Due to vague write ups and “general” descriptions on how to kill a Snapper affectively, I have decided to do my own research and dissect a Snapper Head. To show exactly where the brain is located and what the size is. It wasn’t till I opened up the head that I relised just how off I was and also it gave me a very good precise area for the brain – dispelling a lot of what others had said.

Let’s get into it.

Below are photos I took of a Snapper I chopped open to show where its brain really is. I don’t apologies for the graphic nature of these photos as I know gutting and killing a fish is not a clean process and if you are only use to finished clean fillets – killing and eating your own fish is not for you. Please also note this fish is well dead before I attempted to chop it up and was killed very quickly, it did not suffer. This is a Smaller Pan size Snapper and the reason I chose this is that it is often the size people catch and keep (best eating in my opinion and they aren’t breeding stock).

Snapper before dissection

This is the Cross Section of Snapper Head showing the where the brain is located

This Shows the iki going straight through the brain as located from the cross section done

This shows the exact spot to iki a Snapper to hit the Brain. I used the cross section of the head and pushed the iki spike directly through, there was no angle on the iki spike.

This is the hole made after taking the iki spike out, it shows very clear where to insert your iki to hit the Snapper

So from these pictures you should get a good idea of where the brain is located and how to hit the brain when you are faced with a Snapper. There is no need to put any angle on the iki spike as this may lead to you missing the brain and not killing the Snapper. If you don’t hit the brain there is a good chance the Snapper will take 20 – 30 mins to suffocate to death. This has issues other than the basic disrespect you have for what you eat. Leaving a fish to die this way causes the meat to degrade in a huge way. A build up of lactic acid and other chemicals the fish’s body releases in an effort to combat the effects of suffocation result in bad tasting fish, come meal time. This is the same for any fish. The best practice is to kill the fish as soon as you have decided you will keep it.

The best way to know if you have hit the brain is that the fish will stop moving straight away and may start to have tiny spasms. You will also see that its gills aren’t moving anymore, if there is still gill movement or it is still flapping then the Snapper is still alive and you need to spike it again till it stops. Sometimes after killing a Snapper they may still flap the odd time, this is just nerve activity.

Here’s some details:
When: Sun 24 Jan 2010 at 06:00 AM – 04:00 PM
Location: Raumati Beach, Raumati. To get there take Raumati Road from the SH1, head all the way to the Raumati Village Shops and get to the beach from the Swimming Pool access.

Quick Details:

Prizes galore including kids’ prizes and $1,000 CASH for heaviest Kahawai.

Entry is on the day at the competition base and weigh station at Marine Gardens, Raumati Beach.

Registration from 6am. Fishing between 7am and 3pm The Prize Giving is at the Waterfront Bar & Kitchen from 4pm. Entry: Adults $20 per rod, Juniors $10 per rod. (Juniors defined as 14 years or younger on the day).

For more information contact Mike on 021 187 6618.

Handle Kahawai with care!

We went fishing on Saturday at Paraparaumu and although there was a nice southerly blowing through we still managed to get out. Launching the Zodiac from the beach can cause some issues even with the smaller wave – we don’t have a front cover on our boat to keep the water from splashing over the top. The tricky part is not the first set of waves but generally the ones which break on the sand bar, out a short distance. We find the motor can hit the ground making it very hard to get the nose up to prevent a wave from crashing over. Anyway we got through that without major issue and starting fishing at around 25m. It was fairly choppy out on the water however we were certain the wind would drop during the change to northwesterly. We were trying to target the incoming tide and although low tide was predicted around 11am’ish the current didn’t drop and change till about 2pm.

We did a lot of fishing without much luck at all (just some small sharks) and the hours seemed to just pass. The good thing was that for about 1 hour the wind did drop and it was really nice. But obviously as it did switch to Northwesterly the wind picked up and the sea got choppy again. It was around this time we decided to head in shallower, we saw some good bird activity up and down the beach. We anchored at about 13m of water and the fish finder showed a lot of activity – probably mainly bait fish, however where there are bait fish there are generally larger fish chasing them. In a very short time we started to get takes and wasn’t long before one held. It was a nice size Kahawai. A short time after that we got another Kahawai and as soon as I dropped my line in the water again, I caught a Gurnard. My brother caught a couple of smaller Kahawai, but just this small amount of activity really made the day. I guess the lesson learnt here is to not always rely on one depth to provide you with all your fish. We saw that there was a lot of bird activity in the shallower water and although we didn’t catch Snapper we still did catch Kahawai which I really rate as an eating fish. I guess in the future, if one spot isn’t producing fishing then we should move on… there are times however when a bit of patience is a good thing and sticking to one spot can bring results… this was just not one of those times

Though we have had many sightings of sharks such as the famious great whites a year back (i’m sure i caught one on my line earlier this year) I don’t think we have had a shark attack here at Kapiti – which must mean there’s plenty of fish around!!!

We weren’t expecting much activity till the current dropped and sure enough when it did drop I hooked into a nice eating size Snapper. I caught it on my smaller rod which had a standard dropper rig, using small hooks and small strips of squid bait. Around this same time my brother caught a nice small size Kahawai, by accident, after leaving his hook just over the side of the boat. We didn’t catch anything when the current dropped completely however we did see lots of fish sign at around 12m and this looked like some sort of fish school, however when we did put our lines to this depth we never caught any fish nor did we get any bites. There were some very large trees in the water floating around so I wonder if maybe this was just larger sticks floating around at this depth.

Kapiti Snapper

Once the current started to head north, from the incoming tide, we got more activity. I caught another Snapper the same size as the last one and also I caught another Kahawai. The Snapper this time was caught on my larger rod, which was equip with a Snapper Rig with a large squid tentacle on it.

We didn’t get any action for another hour or so and our lines started to lift higher in the water due to the increase in current. My brother was dealing with one of his lines when suddenly his larger rod bent over quite dramatically. This line wasn’t hugely deep and so he saw that he had caught a Thresher Shark winding his line up a little. He could tell it was due to its large thresher tail. We had to pull in all our lines quickly and also take an ore off our small 8ft Zodiac Boat to prevent the shark from biting into a pontoon or its tail hitting us. Because my brother had 80lb line on he could fight it a little, however we weren’t too happy about bringing this shark too close to the boat so we didn’t try to land it. It wasn’t long before the shark wrapped itself around the anchor and it snapped the line. Unfortunately the camera didn’t take the photo early enough and therefore I couldn’t get a photo of the shark.

to slow to capture the shark

This wasn’t a huge shark, it probably would have gone 3 – 5 ft however its tail was quite a sight as it hit the water. We kept fishing here for a while however nothing more was caught and also there were quite a few boats starting to join this spot so we tried a little shallower at the 20m mark. We didn’t catch anything at this depth however there was again quite a bit of sign on the fish finder.

fish sign

Doing some more tests we went to a depth of 50m in the channel. However there was no sign at all on the fish finder at this depth and after about 30mins we gave up and went to a depth of 30m. At about this time the wind changed from calm southerly to a strengthening north westerly which chopped up the water. It didn’t take us long to catch a really large Kahawai (which we released) and straight after a nice size Gurnard (the first for this summer season). We decided to head in as the wind picked up and what was a nice day turned into a choppy mess (though the fish were still biting, we had enough fish for dinner).

So it was a good day fishing, some interesting things we found was that a good fishing depth was the 25m – 30m mark. We found that at 20m we didn’t catch anything though there was still quite a bit of sign around. At 25m we saw lots of fish sign at about 12m however we aren’t sure what this was, perhaps it was a shark? Or maybe just wood in the water? Either way it was a fun day and glad to catch a good range of fish…

We headed out slowly and started to see the obvious reef bottom with jagged reef structure and obvious seaweed on the fish finder. However there wasn’t much sign of fish. After driving around for about 20mins we decided to find a spot just of the reef with sand bottom. It was about 13m of water so we burlied up the water using cheap cat food and waited. And waited. We didn’t get any bites for about 30 – 40 mins however we did see quite often fish at about 5m and even bringing our lines to this height didn’t bring any takes. So frustrated we moved in closer and onto the reef. As soon as we dropped our lines we started to get nibbles. The first fish we brought up was a small Snapper, which was undersized and therefore released. Soon after we got several more of the undersized Snapper. Once these smaller snapper stopped biting we started to get undersized Blue Cod. Though a bit annoying at times it was good to see such a healthy abundance of smaller fish, I would have imagined Pukerua Bay must have got fairly depleted in fish when netting was allowed – especially around these precious reef areas and it’s good to see there is a ban on, with only hand lines allowed.

Small Pukerua Bay Snapper

Pukerua Bay Snapper

After an hour or so of this type of fishing another boat came by and asked how we were going, telling them we hadn’t had much luck they told us they had caught 4 Snapper at about 20m deep and also they had caught two large eels, obviously they didn’t like catching the large eels by the sound in there voice. Getting a little bored with this spot, plus the fish stopped biting, we decided to drive around and have a look at the contours a bit closer inshore. We saw several Kayakers out there who seemed to be having quite a bit of fun paddling around the rocks with a line out the back. We were quite surprised how flat the bottom showed up around by where SH1 comes into view and at a depth of about 9m. We decided to head out after a short time exploring and parked up about 18m. It felt like we were right in the middle of the ocean as you have to travel fairly far out before reaching this kind of depth, almost outside of the bay. Well we sat there for about 30 mins without any takes and also very little sign of fish, so again we moved on.

Our Garmin 300c

We headed around to the left of Pukerua Bay (south) and tried our luck there. Just around the corner it was more rough as the swell was starting to build. We had tried this area on a previous occasion and hooked onto something really large however this was in 50m of water and this time we were just checking out the shallower area closer to the rocks. The depth we checked out ranged from about 9m – 20m and the bottom contours were more extreme with small drop offs and holes. We first tried a spot which had a large pinnacle as we had heard this was the type of bottom to look for when fishing on reefs. This Pinnacle was quite extreme going from a depth of 13m to 5m and was located straight out from where the car park ends on shore. We had some great fish signs down there and a school of fish must have come through at one point (thought we didn’t catch whatever they were) as our fish finder went crazy, however again all we caught were parrot fish and the odd undersized blue cod. After sitting there for an hour or so we decided to move and try and hunt for obvious fish sign. Interesting we didn’t see any sign at all and we started to think that to be successful at Pukerua Bay you need good local knowledge. It seemed no matter where we parked up all we caught were smaller fish. There were several boats around however we did notice that they would park up for 20mins then drive off around the corner or off down back towards Paraparaumu Beach, so maybe the fishing just wasn’t that great. The swell was getting abit larger and the sea was starting to get rough so we decided to head back towards our first spot where we caught the undersized snapper and cod.

There was some great action here, again catching the undersized blue cod and parrot fish but also we got some larger takes. By this time the tide had switched so we were keen to see if the fishing would change. My brother did quite a large strike on what he thought was another blue cod, however it was solid. We initially thought that it might have been a large snapper as it was keeping down, however that changed to maybe a shark as we saw the shape and dark body. But it turned out to be a HUGE conger eel, this must have been the same type of eel the people earlier in the day had caught. We brought it closer to the boat preparing to release it and I got a couple of quick photos. My brother grabbed his 80lb leader and pulled it closer to the boat and that’s when his line snapped. So we would have to estimate that eel to be around the 80lb mark, either way that was the largest eel I had ever seen.

Pukerua Bay Conger Eel

grabbing the leader just before the line snaps, you get an idea of how thick this eel was

I do like Pukerua Bay however when I look at how many legal size fish we catch just of the beach at Raumati and Paraparaumu (you are almost gaurenteed Kahawai) I think we will wait awhile before heading back down there. Living up in Raumati it does take some time to get everything in and out of the car down there, so you really need to make a decent trip out of it. I think Pukerua Bay does offer reef fishing especially for smaller boats like ours who can’t get to Kapiti Island. Our biggest issue is that we need more experience in finding fish on a reef and also the types of techniques to be successful. However the big difference I do notice at Pukerua Bay is that you are always catching something – even if it’s undersized. Fishing on a beach you can spend hours without even a bite.

First Snapper this Summer

We went out yesterday at midday in near perfect conditions. The water was a couple of degrees warmer than a couple of weeks ago and there was a lot of bird activity from Paraparaumu Beach through to Raumati Beach. Alot of this was in the shallow water, but great sign to see so many bait fish and large schools of Kahawai… we all know with large schools of Kahawai come larger fish. We decided to head out front of the Kapiti Boat club again at depth of 24m. With the tide heading out we drifted south towards Raumati Beach. The water temperature was reading about 16°c so this was a great sign for Snapper. I had baited my larger rod with a good size squid tenticle on a snapper rig and it wasn’t long before I had the familiar take of a Snapper – it kept down, with small tugs and didn’t run. I knew it wasn’t a large Snapper however I was excited that it was the first of Summer and first for quite a while. Getting it to the boat it was a perfect size for the pan. I am very much into keeping the smaller size snapper over the larger ones as I am very much into letting larger older Snapper breed. The Smaller Snapper make for easier filleting and also better eating in my opinion.

We drifted down towards Raumati Beach however didn’t hook up on anything so we decided to go and investigate the large bird activity in the shallows (a depth of about 3m). Also I forgot to mention it was around this time we lost battery power to our new Garmin 300c so we were fishing blind but we are use to this so just decided to muck around and try something alittle different in this shallower water. We did hook up on small Kahawai at this depth, releasing the smaller ones and keeping a couple of good eaters. After this little bit of action we decided to head back to where I caught the last Snapper and again it didn’t take long to catch yet another nice pan size one. At the same time my smaller rod hooked up on a Kahawai and also my brothers bait got stripped – which makes us think a school of Kahawai and Snapper came through.

Our New Garmin 300c

The location of where we caught these Snapper was at a depth of about 20 – 24m and along Paraparaumu Beach Parade… basically from the shops through to where the road turns inward towards Raumati Beach….

It’s a great sign that the Snapper are along the beach now so I hope people can get out there and start getting some of that great Kapiti Snapper!

We went out from Paraparaumu Beach, the tide was very high, there was no wind at all and the sun was shinning. We were very excited to finally see what the bottom of Paraparaumu Beach looked like and to have proper depth readings from our new Fish Finder. It was a bit of a home job connecting the transducer to the back of the Zodiac with a tent pole and the battery was sitting loose inside a lunch box container, with the actual reader bolted on to our hatch (as you guessed this isn’t a portable fish finder however going on advice you are better spending your pennys on better equipment rather than portablilty)…. but to our surprise it actually worked really well. With this setup it virtually felt like a portable fish finder and was perfect for our small zodiac setup.  Like with most new electronics we didn’t even bother to read any instructions rather just played around pressing buttons till it showed us the dotted read outs of what might be fish or schools of bait fish. We got really excited when we started to see lots of dots around and so we dropped our lines but soon we relised this is probably just a lot of sticks and junk in the water… I decided to put in the fish symbols to help us better work out what fish look like. I was very impressed that it actually was so powerful it could read our lines as we dropped them and also this helped us work out at what depth our lines were. Knowing this I felt very comfortable that when this reader showed a fish, then there was a fish down there. I’m very skeptical as to whether fish finders are showing fish or something else, however now working with this one i’m certain it does its job very well. We got to the magic depth of 20 – 25m which served us very well earlier in the year and was interesting to see just how flat the bottom really is. Also very interesting to see how the channel suddenly drops from about 25m – 50m in places. You would expect that on both the top and bottom of this drop would be places to find fish.  We always knew there was the drop off to the channel here however we were never quite sure the exact location as our previous sounder only showed fish and depth was just a number, not a graph.

Anyway the fishing wasn’t great however we weren’t expecting much at this time of the year, i think it’s still a bit early for the beach style of fishing we do. In saying that we did catch a Kahawai and two got off. We got a barracuda and also something very large – probably a shark but maybe a king fish, but it snapped our line so we will never know. I like this fish finder, it tells you when it finds fish by beeping and it gives good readouts when you want to survey the bottom. Paraparaumu has some interesting bottom contours which i’m sure we will explore very well over the Summer months.