Working with tackle giant Pure Fishing; the owner and distributor of multiple fishing brands such as Penn & Berkley. It sees me connect and fish with some of the best fishers in NZ and I’ve been fortunate to fish with some of NZ’s best anglers over the last 20 years, from Marlin fishers to trout. And buddy, Sam Vincent Connolly easily fits into this category. For this reason, I try never to turn down an opportunity to fish with him as it always presents a learning situation. This time it was land-based fishing. And although I cut my teeth as a land-based snapper fisher, my rock fishing was pretty one dimensional – successful, yes – but not a lot of variety. I always tried to fish deeper ledges – big burly, 7-foot rods with 10kg mono.
This trip to some of Sam’s local spots was the opposite of this, very shallow casting into a depth of only 2 metres of water!
I was unaware of the fishing conditions until we arrived at Sams’s spot, so I brought along the standard Penn Live Liner 6500 with 10kg mono on a 7′ stray line rod. My stock standard stray line set for catching XL snapper in the boat. And what I’ve always used off the rocks in years gone past.
Sam came equipped with some more specialised and better suited for shallow water fishing; a 10′ Penn Regiment rod and a Penn Live Liner 4500 spooled with a 20lb braid. Extremely light in hand and perfect for whipping out a small bait on a circle hook.
I naturally queried Sam on his use of braid of the rocks; I’m not too fond of braid for stray line fishing. But Sam’s answer made a lot of sense. On windy days, the belly of the line disappears far quicker once a fish picks up the bait and the braid also cuts the wind far easier, meaning he is in better contact with his cut bait. As opposed to mono, which can be pretty clumsy on a windy day like we had today—both for subtle bite detection and the heavy belly in the line that wind creates, putting you on the back foot before you begin.
The 10′ rod was perfect for fishing in the ultra-shallow water as this gave Sam the ability to keep the fish’s head high and out of the thick kelp.
Braid does give you a weakness in abrasion resistance, so keeping fish out of the rough stuff is essential. I’ve always thought that braid gives ‘too much feel’ and prefer the stretch of mono for stray line fishing. But this didn’t slow Sam down one bit, and he quickly demonstrated why his rig was superior to everyone else’s.
Trip Details
Date – Tuesday 17th May 2022
Location – Hauraki Gulf Nothern Rock Ledges
Bait – Jack Mackeral & Pilchards
Burley – None
Low tide – 2:08pm
Start Fishing – 2 pm
Stop fishing – 7 pm
Moon – Full moon, day after.
Bite time – 2-3 pm, sporadic after that.
Fish count – 9 fish for three anglers.
Fish size – 30-50cm
The first spot we fished was only a short hour – a rising king tide cut us off, and we had to make a hasty escape to get back before any swimming was required. However, the fishing for the first hour was good, with Sam catching a fish on every bait. Rock spot 2 had much easier access and undoubtedly received lots of pressure due to the short 30-second walk from the car park to the rocks. Nonetheless, we were sheltered from the wind and still managed to catch snapper. The bigger fish are coming on after dark.
That was one refreshing trip, with all my land-based fishing in the last couple of years being lure fishing. So it was cool to get back to some bait fishing. Not taking burley seemed not to affect our catching and made for far weight to carry around and admin on the rocks. The fish were all in the 30-50cm size, and we all got a good feed to take home.
