Wellington / Kapiti

fishing report

September 9, 2022

Supplied by

Pete Lamb

Pete Lamb Fishing

Note: If map is showing it is created by LINZ / New Zealand Hydrographic Authority and made available by Creative Commons 3.0. Maps should not be used for navigation

Even the trusty dog struggled to round up a decent haul of whitebait this week! We got a few but wouldn’t be making more than a couple of fritters, although there are a few good catches starting to come up over Kapiti coast way and over at Lake Ferry. We expect the full moon and big tides to fire up a good run so could be worth dusting off the net.

Thankfully there are bigger fish in the sea, and there’s currently a very good run of decent sized gurnard about at the moment, in the harbour and around the surrounding coastlines.

From both the shore and by boat, big gurnard are always welcome for the pot.

Hitting the classic ledger rigs with around 3/0 hooks and fish bait like salted bonito etc generally being better than squid, gurnard like a bit of bling too.

Flasher rigs or baits with small lumo beads are often irresistible to grunters.

At the moment, with all the rain recently, there’s a lot of discoloration in the water, so these visual stimulants can help fish identify your bait.

There looks to be a bit of a settled period coming up, so expect a bit of traffic at the local ramps over the next while as we finally get to shoot out and give it a decent crack.

It’s definitely still winter conditions as far as water temps go, so often it requires a good effort with the bait and patience with building a good berley trail to get their noses up.

The real inshore run of snapper is not generally for a few months yet, but there’s always a chance of picking resident snapper and the odd schoolies out of the foul inshore, and off sandy areas close to reefs.

Out wider, the puka generally start to be easier to find and catch starting October as they ready for spawning.

It’s a good time for warehou at the moment. These fireballs are a great sport fish commonly caught around 15 to 20 metres, and often mid-water, around reefs and foul, and they go really well!

Not only are they a good strong fighter, but they are much like a bluenose to eat.

Out at Hunters, Fisherman’s, Five Mile Reef etc, you’ll catch good three to six kilo fish, with the odd banger going up to ten.

They tend to be a winter fish, so we’re probably getting to the tail end of their peak season, but you never quite know how things will go from year to year.

It’s worth mentioning that the surf casting has been pretty good around Evan’s Bay lately, all the rocky points and even the wharves producing nice gurnard and the odd snapper along with the regular kahawai catches.

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Cheers

Pete

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