Very big crabs out there at the moment.

I’ve been trying to catch a Snapper, or at least something other than a Kahawai around the local Napier beaches this month. Others have done it, so I’ve heard through the grapevine. In fact I’ve seen photographic evidence that Snapper do exist (or perhaps that should be past-tense did exist) in our local waters.

The problem at present is getting a bait to stay in the water for more than 2 or 3 minutes. There appears to be an absolute plague of paddle crabs around at the moment, and with nothing to eat them, they have free reign to strip your superbly prepared pilchard or skipjack baits before any fish can find them.

A recent southerly storm left the beaches around here littered with smashed up paddle crab shells. Seeing this I thought maybe it might make a dent in the population of these underwater rats. Not so. With no Snapper or Lemon Shark to eat the crabs, they have thrived on the carcases of their mates and there are some really big specimens out there!

When the crabs are about in these numbers there’s pretty much nothing you can do to stop them destroying your baits. Last night my floated baits were being decimated in 2-3 minutes. Re-bait one rod, cast it out, retrieve rod number two, re-bait that, cast it out. Back to rod number one, bait gone.

Using crab for bait to catch lemon sharks and snapper only works if those fish are about. You can be sure when the crabs are this active, there are no predators about. If the crabs are rampant and suddenly stop taking your baits, thats usually a sign that predators have turned up. And thats when you toss out a hook baited with crab.

Last night I caught several large paddle crabs, one of them was caught on paddle crab bait!

More Paddle Crab Info:
http://www.forestandbird.org.nz/what-we-do/publications/-best-fish-guide-/paddle-crabs
http://seafoodindustry.co.nz/n1242,245.html

Some samples below: Link at the bottom for the rest.

Click Here for all articles

The new gate blocking access to Ocean Beach

One of my favourite beaches, Ocean Beach HB, is now under threat of access controlled by private concerns.
There has been much comment in forums, newspaper articles, finger pointing here and there, but the problem is still that a few people are trying to lock out the rest of New Zealand from public coastline.

The people who own the land around Ocean Beach, (and more importantly the land containing the HDC maintained access road) have demanded that the HDC put in a gate blocking access to the beach at night.

From 6am to 8pm the gate will be open. From 8pm to 6am it will be locked.
That may be fine for day trippers who want to sunbathe and swim etc, but for surfcasters who want to be fishing the sunrise, or fish into the evening, its a big problem.

The cause of all this gate nonsense, is apparently the result of people camping in the car park, and the resulting rubbish etc. Now personally I have no problem with the car park being locked up, I don’t use it.
The issue here is that beach access requires driving through the car park and out onto the sand.
With the gate locked, there is no vehicle access to the beach at all.
Which means no getting out for an early sunrise fishing trip, or perhaps even being locked in, and not being able to get home at night.

I feel the camping, and rubbish issue may be just a red herring, or an excuse to implement access control of the beach and all its resources by this group of land owners.
Something along the lines of “this is OUR beach, stay out”.
I hope that’s not the case

That’s not to say rubbish is not an issue, its a huge issue. You only have to look at easy-access beaches such as Awatoto and Whirinaki  to see piles of rubbish left behind by idiots who cannot see the future of their actions.

So please if you visit a beach somewhere, take ALL of your rubbish home with you. There’s no excuse for leaving cans, bottles, plastic bags etc behind. The rest of us are trying to protect YOUR access to that beach..

Further discussion in the surfcasting forums here, and here:

Or you could contact the HDC Parks and Properties Asset Manager, Colin Hosford directly colinh@hdc.govt.nz

Lemonfish and bags of gear

It would be interesting to know what the recreational fishing hobby, or sport if you want to call it that, generates in dollar terms for New Zealand economy every year.
At a time when most of our commercial catch seems to be harvested by non-kiwis in foreign ships and exported to foreign nations. How much, if any, of that money actually ends up in the pockets of the everyday Kiwi to be recirculated into our economy?

I can’t speak for recreational boaties who fish, but I can for surfcasting, at least for my own experiences in surfcasting.

What do I spend on fishing, per kilogram of fish that ends up on my table?

Like boat fishing, surfcasting has a few large one-time fixed expenses which should be considered capital costs.
These are costs incurred before you can even wet a line, and not re-incurred until the equipment is replaced due to wear and tear, or upgrades etc.

The ‘running costs’ of the fishing hobby are things like terminal tackle, hooks, line, lures, sinkers, bait, petrol, etc.
So sticking with what I know, surfasting, I’ll run though some basics.

Fixed costs – capital items:
2 rods.
2 reels.
2 rod stands,
1 tackle box,
1 knife,
I chillybin
( I won’t include my 4wd vehicle because that gets used for other things as well as fishing)
Total replacement cost for those items? Lets say approx $2000.00

Running costs – expendable items
Petrol (to get to and from the location)
Bait (usually a bag of pilchards and a skipjack, but may include mussels, prawns etc)
Terminal tackle (hooks, traces, sinkers, floats, lost or damaged during fishing etc)
Approximate outlay for my average fishing trip within 100km of home?  Lets say about $100.00 on average.

Note: (this cost can vary considerably with variables such as distance travelled, types and quantities of bait purchased, and gear lost/or not,)

Now we must tally the amount of fish we catch against the cost of catching it. This is where things become very sobering.  There are of course outings when you do not catch any fish at all. This means  those costs ‘jackpot’ onto the costs for the next outing and so on until some fish are caught.
On average I would say optimistically, 50% of my fishing outings are productive. That is to say I have at least one fish to bring home for a feed from every two trips.
It may be a Kahawai, or if I’ve been exceptionally lucky a Gurnard or a Lemonfish. Sometimes I might have an excellent day and bring home two or three fish. Sometimes I may go many trips without a catch.
So working on the assumption that I ‘should’ catch at least one Kahawai every two trips (it often doesn’t work that well though) and that the average adult Kahawai weighs about 2kg,  I am spending at least $200 per 2kg of fish landed.  Or about $100 per fillet of fish.
This is not including the capital investment costs mentioned earlier.

Now I know there are some fishing guns out there who’s catch rate is a lot better than mine. I also know there are many who hardly ever catch anything. So I’ll consider myself in the middle  ‘Joe Average” for the purposes of this calculation.
So the average surfcaster is putting $100+ into the economy for every 1kg of fish he/she catches.
This of course doesn’t take into account those who practice ‘catch and release’ and treat fishing purely as a sport. They don’t take home any fish, so the economy gains 100% of their expenditure.

I’d be interested in comparing that with the commercial sector’s input to the economy for every kilogram of their fish that ends up on a New Zealand table…

http://www.hawkesbaytoday.co.nz/news/ocean-beach-to-be-locked-to-vehicles-overnight/1205246/

Please protest this as best you can.

Not that there’s anything wrong with Kahawai, but the only fish we’ve eaten in the last few months has been Kahawai and we were keen to get something else.

So we loaded up the van for an overnighter and headed north. The weather forecast wasn’t all that good to be honest, but we didn’t want to stay home and do nothing for the weekend.
Driving past Whirinaki beach the sea looked fair, a bit of a swell but clean, we assumed it would be much the same further up the coast.

Lake Tutira

We stopped in at Lake Tutira and took some photos before heading north again.

Filling up with gas again at Wairoa I bumped into a local fishing guru who informed us that the sea was huge and we would be best to carry on to the other side of Mahia Peninsular where it would be protected from the swells.
We took that advice and headed north again.
The sea at Whakaki was indeed rough with 3m swells and filthy brown water. We arrived at snapper rock on the sheltered side of the peninsular early afternoon to see deep, clean blue water and lovely exposed rock platforms to fish from.

Snapper rock Mahia

We dumped a bag of burley into the tide (mostly crayfish bodies and frozen fish frames etc) and cast our baits over the foul into the deep blue.
Weather forecast was for up to 15knots of wind but I’d guess we were getting a solid 30knots. You know when it takes 120m of line to cast 60m you have a bit of a side wind!!
The wind was bitterly cold and we were rugged up with jackets and beanies. Sporadic rain squalls passed through in between bursts of sunshine which wouldn’t have been so bad if the fishing was good. The fishing was dead, no bites, nothing. After about two hours and trying numerous different baits, Michelle hooked and landed a nice scrappy Kahawai. From then on until 10pm there was nothing biting.

At 10pm the wind had all but stopped so we packed up the van and headed back to Whakaki to camp up for the night.
Shining the spotlights at the surf revealed what we could hear, huge pounding seas and muddy water.
We slept until 4am and I crawled out of the van to check the sea. It was still heavy and dirty but nowhere near as bad as the night before. I hadn’t come this far to give up, so baits were in the water and coffee brewing before sunrise.
By 9.30am we had all but exhausted our supply of bait and the chillybin still only held yesterdays lone Kahawai.

Ahh well, thats the way it goes sometimes.
Time to head home.

Waihua

We stopped at Waihua on the way home just to have a look and take some photos.

Surfcasters have been targetting big Snapper as is the norm at this time of year.
And all that effort has paid off for a few lucky fishermen here in Hawkes Bay.

Most of the ‘biggies; have been caught in northern HB, from Mohaka to East Cape, but the biggest I’ve heard of was caught right here on a local Napier beach. Twelve point nine kilos is a monster Snapper in anyone’s books.

Myself, I’ve not managed to catch any, but then I’m probably in the majority saying that. Fish of 10kg plus are really once in a lifetime fish for most surfcasters.

There are reports of Moki being caught locally as well as further south.

Hail stones on the beach

Our weather seems to be in two minds at the moment, sometimes it reassures us the summer is on the way, and then knocks us back to winter with southerly rain and even hail!
Changeable, I think they call it.
It’s to be expected in springtime I guess, but lately we’ve been getting all seasons in one day.

The good news is the water is getting warmer, and thus better species of fish are turning up. In the last two days I’ve caught Gurnard and Kawhai whilst dodging searing sun, thunderstorms, cold southerlies and hail, all within the space of a few hours.  Weird yes, but that’s fine if the fish are biting. One theory held true though, surfcasting in the blazing sun, is nowhere near as productive as less comfortable overcast, rainy weather.

Further north at Mohaka and Wairoa , there are reports of the occasional Snapper and big female lemons being caught. If you happen to catch a big Lemonfish at this time of year, remember to perform an immediate cesarean section and release the babies.

Hail stones in the footprints

The storm moves offshore

A nice Kahawai from TeAwanga beach

The humble Kahawai is often overlooked as a ‘real fish’ in this country. Comments like “just a scummy kahawai” and  “cat food” are to my mind elitist and just plain wrong these days.  A shame really, as there are many times when catching a Kahawai is the only difference between counting a fishing trip as a success or a failure. It’s often referred to as “the people’s fish”  for several reasons. Kahawai are present most of the time along most of the coastline of NZ. When they are around they are usually voracious feeders and hooking one is relatively easy. They’ll eat almost anything, and put up a decent fight on light gear.

I’ve met people who refuse to eat Kahawai, they seem to think its a rubbish fish, bait or cat food etc. They are usually boaties who can venture far offshore to catch other species. To the surfcaster, the Kahawai is an important fish. Ok its not in the league of Snapper or Gurnard taste wise, but if you relied on catching those two species for a feed you would starve. I have no problem cooking and eating Kahawai. Kill and bleed the fish as soon as you land it. If time permits, head and gut it as well. Cook it the same day, it doesn’t freeze well, so fresh is the key. There are numerous fancy Kahawai recipes around but even treated basically, crumbed and fried its very tasty. Smoked Kahawai is very nice too.

Worm ridden Barracouta

Since June I have caught nothing but Kahawai in HB waters, (discounting other rubbish like spiny dogs and our worm filled barracouta) so I’m very happy to be able to take home a kahawai and have fresh fish for dinner. Believe me, after 7 or 8 fishless outings in a row, catching a humble Kahawai feels great

With the steady decline of our commercially hammered species like Snapper and Gurnard, the surfcaster will need to lower his or her sights a little, and accept the fact that if you are going to eat fish, it will most likely be Kahawai, or some other species you used to feed to the cat.

We all have our own perceptions I guess. When I turn up at the beach and look at the sea I have a feeling, or instinct that says “i want to fish there” or perhaps “that doesnt look very good”.

Is it based on experience? Eg: we have caught fish in these sort of water conditions before, so our instinct says ‘fish here’.

Is it based on something else? For the most part I can personally dismiss the experience theory, as I have caught fish in rubbish looking water before, and missed out completely when fishing in (what I thought) was good looking water in equal measures.

Is it based on the species being sought? I personally have caught bigger snapper in dirty water than in clean.

Taking known locations and history out of the equation, I wonder if our perception of fishy water (or not) would be different. For example, if you were visiting an unknown beach and area and had no knowledge of its previous fishing history.

Is fishy water a myth, or can it only be designated as such, on the way home?

Good water? – nope – too clean too calm

Good water? – yes

Good water? – not necessarily – but dusk adds hope

Good water? – yes, not that it looks much

Good water? – nope – absolutely dead

Good water? – nope – absolutely dead

Good water? – nope – absolutely dead

Good water? – maybe for certain species

Good water? – nope – absolutely dead