b'Tested Lanza SlipknotThe cool looking reel seat in blue and black colours, even matches the writers Daiwa 2500 reel.KAIPARA TEST shellfish, crabs and mantis shrimps. when bait fishing and using recurve With winter weather workingWith recent heavy rain, the harbourhooks to let the fish run with against us to get out to test thewas very murky and brown, so wethe bait and hook themselves.new rod, I finally managed a day ontried drifting and softbaiting first, butThe fishing was very slow as we the Kaipara in early August.Thethe fish would have had too muchcut up a lot of bait to throw out as recent cold snaps had howevertrouble seeing the lures offered. berley and we drank hot coffee from lowered the harbour temperatureThe Slipknot 7ft was achievingthe Thermos and waited.Muzza considerably and at only 12 degrees,good casts and it felt a little heavierstarted getting small bites on his the fishing had been slow. than my 1-piece Slipknot, but Imullet baits after nearly 20 minutes We launched my uncle Muzzaswondered if the 7 4 ft rod wouldand I had nothing interested in trailer cat from Ruawai and headedhave offered even more distance. mine.I gutted a mullet to throw down the flat calm river to fish theWe decided to anchor to straylineout as berley and used the soft upper harbour on the incomingbaits and bring the fish to us,onion part of the gut and after tide.The fish move up througheven though these are lure rodscasting out, I got almost immediate the channels and onto the topsthe sensitive nature of the SCTinterest and a nice run on the of shallow mud banks to feed onblanks helps to hook fish wellrod, but the fish dropped it.58FISHING IN GODZONE MAGAZINE'