With most people focused on workup fishing during Spring, we find the shallow water and fishing depths up to 30 metres can be spectacular, and the average size fish is pretty bonkers. However, we seldom go deeper than 15 metres.
This past Spring saw us on a content creation trip for the legends at Penn NZ & Aus, photographing and testing the new series of Penn Regiment rods, paired up with the new Penn Slammer IV 2500.
Destination Hauraki Gulf
As much as I love content creation trips, I’m usually standing behind the camera taking photos, and my buddies are the ones holding the fish up. Guess we all have to pay the bills somehow!
The new Penn Regiment rods are outstanding, perfect for all soft bait & lure fishing orientations in NZ. I won’t delve into a rod review in this piece, suffice to say, they are the best light lure rod in Penns Quiver and are perfect for NZ conditions, made with quality components and at around $200, they easily match most $300 rods that are currently on the market.
Trips like these are always big days; we like a dawn departure and a sunset return. It’s essential to get the shot, and there is no better time to be on the water than watching the sunrise and the sunset. Any stress melts away when you set off on an adventure to gather food from the wild, as ultimately, this is what humans were born to do hunt and gather. Not buy it in a supermarket aisle.
When workups appear in their usual haunts during Spring in the Hauraki Gulf Marine Park, it’s always tempting to chase them for an easy feed. But there is no better way to catch snapper than casting soft baits into the shallows and introducing someone new to this; it usually sees them give up any desire to chase gannets. But, of course, if we run over any workup activity, we often stop and grab a couple of fish for the ice slurry and then carry on. The beautiful part about shallow water lure fishing is 99% of the fish are perfect release candidates. Assuming you don’t put your fingers in their gills or leave them out of the water too long. They release just fine, which enables us to be selective in what we keep whilst enjoying the fishery and mindful of our footprint.
The wonderful thing about softbaiting is you won’t see crowds of people like you do workup fishing. We do encounter other boats, but you are on your own for the most part. Fishing mid-week helps a lot, of course.
Asides from taking a bunch of cool images, there was probably no better test for the rods than what we put them through. During the day, about a dozen fish over 60cm, several in the 70cm range, and one stonker were caught. My job is to document this through images and report my observations to Penn Australia/NZ. We don’t always measure fish unless it’s someone’s first big fish or the angler specifically wants a measurement. Mainly because it’s additional time a fish is out of the water, and returning the fish in good health is very important to us. To the crew at Hauraki Gulf Fishing, fish survival is more important than knowing if the fish is 7kg or 75cm. Either way, it’s an epic fish, and we want to focus on getting a memorable photo to remember it by.
When fishing the shallows (sub 12 metres), It’s essential to remember that it might not happen straight away or if the water is gin clear, and still, it’s going to be slow fishing. We have a pretty strong understanding of areas we fish and when and where to hit them. Bit if you are getting into this style of lure fishing, it will take some patience to figure out.
Look for dirty water, current and baitfish, and the big reds won’t be far away. Hopefully, we will bump into you the water or boat ramp. We are out there every week.
