Raumati Beach – 7 Snappers – 3 Kahawai – 2 Gurnard – 2 Mackerel – 1m Shark

We decided to give drift fishing ago on Saturday. So we went out about 9:30am, with ideal fishing time guessed at about 12:50pm. However we later found out that low tide was infact about 2pm. We thought that we should try our own homemade drift anchor which consisted of a few Pam’s shopping bags sitting out the back. Sure enough this really didn’t work, so we decided to give our small claw anchor ago. We also attached the burly pot to it which was a bonus. This proved to be really good, basically allowing us to drift enough so that our lines stayed pretty much below the boat. We had launched the boat from Kapiti Boat Club however decided to drift right down to Raumati Beach and give this a go. We caught our first Snapper at about 20m depth of water, about half way down the beach between Paraparaumu and Raumati Beach. Shortly after this we started to regularly catch Snapper for about 20mins. We found that an hour would pass then we would get some more action, then it would die. So it definitely seems that you catch fish in periods of about 10 – 20min at a time. We were using two different rigs to test out the drift fishing. I was using the standard dropper rig while my brother was using the Snapper rig. I did notice that when there was more drift that I was hooking up more than him. I was using 8lb line with my rig tied with 20lb line. It wasn’t till the current started to drop that the Snapper rig started to get a lot of action. Infact so much action that I only caught a Kahawai when the drift died. My brother on the other hand caught 5 Snapper and 3 Gurnard. I tried his bait, which was Mackerel – of course I was not to sure about this bait as it did catch me that large shark the other day. My brother seemed to be bringing in constant fish whereas I was struggling to get bites. When I changed baits I did start to get some good nibbles however I couldn’t seem to hook up on whatever was down there. Later we found out that it must have been Gurnard as my brother did manage to hook one with a good strike.

It was predicted that it would be an average day for fishing however what we found was that there were plenty of Snapper. Infact previous to this day we had only caught 3 Snapper in a fishing day. They weren’t huge Snapper just the nice good eaters. We hadn’t tried any drift fishing before however I think the claw anchor works really well and from today’s experience it shows it’s a good technique to use when the current gets up. I think the claw anchor works so well that in theory you shouldn’t have to ever drop the sand anchor as the claw anchor seems to move perfectly with the currents and when the current dies it grips in the sand enough to keep you still.

You can catch some good fish just by letting yourself drift, especially the times when fishing from a fixed anchor is just to challenging with strong currents. One other thing we noticed was there was a fish down there that was nibbling all the time but wouldn’t easily hook up. It was taking our bait, which was Mackerel. A good strike pulled up a Gurnard. So if you are finding on the sand that something is nibbling but not taking then its probably a Gurnard. Also we noticed that out from where the river enters the sea at Raumati Beach Pools the sand below seems to catch your sinker or perhaps there is weed down there. It seemed like there was a clay bottom sticking the sinkers, however because this was just out from the river it might have just been foul. But we did have great success with Snapper at about the 20m depth just off the Raumati Beach Swimming Pools. As a small surprise just as we were pulling in our lines for the day my brother caught a 1m long Shark. It had a good set of teeth on it, but we released it as we had already had plenty to eat. A great days fishing with perfect conditions!!