To compound things, there 
wasn’t a breath of wind, so the 
river and harbour had thick 
soupy fog with as little as 30-
40m visibility at best.  We 
had to slowly make our way 
down the river and avoid all 
the debris, while watching the 
GPS to keep in deeper water.
Sandbanks are prevalent 
throughout the shallow areas of 
the Kaipara, so it is essential to 
closely monitor your chart plotter, 
observe channel markers, and 
exercise caution while navigating.
As we neared the settlement 
of Pouto with the large wharf 
coming from the point, the fog 
finally started to lift, and we could 
speed up to head down past 
Chicken Point and try the first 
reef out from the lighthouse.
BIG FIRST FISH
With an outgoing tide and no wind, 
the conditions were perfect as the 
sea is a lot calmer over the incoming 
period when the big swells roll in 
over the notorious bar.  Muzza 
and I rigged up our heavy 1.5oz 
jig heads with larger 7” softbaits.
I was using a Rapala Crush City 
Jerk 7” in Rock Melon (green/
orange) colours which has really 
produced on big fish over the past 
year.  Muz decided on a long-tailed 
grub in Nuked Chicken (red/green) 
colours which had more scent also.
There was a lot of bait fish schools 
and snapper sign on the bottom 
at the first reef we wanted to hit, 
Muzza lined up the boat, and we 
dropped down to drift along on 
the fast 5-6 knot current and work 
our lures hard on the bottom.
Muzza hooks up on the Lanza Slipknot 
with a good fish that took a lot of line, 
straight out from the Pouto lighthouse.
Feature
30  FISHING IN GODZONE MAGAZINE

View this content as a flipbook by clicking here.