I
t was early winter, during 
the last week of May as 
autumntime ends that I 
made the mid-week call for 
a day trip out on the Kaipara 
harbour.  The weather had 
been very settled for a long 
time in May, with little rain 
and warm temperatures with low 
winds.  It was a welcome relief 
after the recent volatile summer 
and autumn of severe weather 
events limiting time on the water.
The local reports of the top 
harbour fishing and condition 
of the snapper were too good 
to believe, so I made plans with 
Graeme Paterson from Lanza Rods 
to take the Oceanpro 535 centre 
console to find out for ourselves.
Arriving at the boat ramp in the 
upper harbour limits, it was busy 
at a late launching hour around 
10am with a lone boat also getting 
ready to launch.  We usually have 
the ramp to ourselves during the 
week, and this is one of the nice 
things about the west side, it gets 
a lot less boaties than the east 
coast.  No queues for launching or 
retrieving, with plenty of parking.
We had a quick chat to the guys 
in their Rayglass, who had never 
launched here before and they 
planned to go further out to the 
notorious graveyard to fish for 
snapper.  We were going to hit 
the shallows as the fishing reports 
from our trusted sources had 
been good, with fat snapper in 
the 40-60cm range and bigger.
After launching and heading down 
the harbour in flat calm conditions 
with the sun out, we looked for 
the deeper channels which the 
fish use as highways to move up 
and down the harbour over the 
tide changes.  The tide was still 
going out with low around 2:30pm 
and with plenty of current to help 
our berley and baits attract fish.
Fishing a deeper hole in the 
harbour with plenty of baitfish 
and sign on the outgoing tide.
The Lowrance Recon holds the 
centre console well in the 5-6 
knot currents for bait fishing
Feature
10  FISHING IN GODZONE MAGAZINE

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