I cast out with tuatua and within just 
a minute had a good strike and a solid 
fish take line.  It felt like a snapper 
and sure enough a 46cm fish was 
soon on the beach.  This was a good 
spot, so I recast and another five 
minutes later I had a small trevally 
which I wanted for fresh bait the next 
day.  That was enough for me and 
headed back with plans to return.
Saturday morning at 6:30am and 
local Brian Snooks picked me up and 
we drove onto the beach at 7am 
in darkness and made our way up 
the beach with several other utes 
following on behind us.  The sea had 
unfortunately got up overnight and 
waves were sweeping up with a lot 
of debris and dirty water from the 
storm coming in onto the beach.
As we neared to the spot, in the 
darkness I could see two utes 
parked up high in the dunes on 
our spot above the high tide mark 
and with a pitched tent!  This was 
disappointing to see and although 
not in the rules against sleeping on 
the beach, it isn’t very sporting.
I was cursing to Snooks on our 
luck as we drove on to look at 
plan b which was further north 
and luckily nobody had yet got 
to the hole that looked okay with 
a deep channel out the back.
At the 9am start, Brian and I cast 
out in the foggy morning with cloud 
cover overhead as the sun struggled 
to breakthrough.  Ideal surfcasting 
conditions with poor light, but the 
murky sea with heavy plankton, weed 
and sticks didn’t look good for fishing.
MORNING BITE
We knew that the morning would 
be the best time to score fish as the 
sun was coming out after midday 
and with low tide at 1pm, the holes 
had better water in them over 
the morning tide.  After twenty 
minutes, Brian hooked up and soon 
had a nice pannie snapper on the 
beach.  We tagged it as thought the 
fishing might be slow today and you 
never know what would be caught 
A good crowd turned out at 
Omamari Gap for the weigh 
in with the sun out and wind 
down in the late afternoon.
Feature
20  FISHING IN GODZONE MAGAZINE

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