July 11th, Tuesday 6.00am, Castor Bay, Auckland.
I’m awake but grabbing those precious extra few minutes in bed. I’m a pom on assignment in NZ for a year and another workday lies ahead. The mobile goes, my wife ‘tuts’ and buries her face deep into her pillow.
It’s John, a kiwi, my fishing mate. I fumble for my phone in the dark. John informs me that ‘the pond is a mirror, the tide is right and the snaps are mad for it. See you at the beach in 10 minutes.’
I reluctantly agree and begin the unpleasant process of getting up on a chilly winter’s morning – it’s not that cold in Auckland but NZ houses don’t have central heating! John’s call was in fact three minutes behind schedule, all part of our devious plan to grab a couple of hours fishing before work and excuse me from my turn of child breakfast duty. It worked. Although I’m sure ‘er indoors has clicked already. How do women do that? Anyway…..
Bait, tackle and boat are already prepared. I gingerly walk down the stairs, grab my shorts, fleece and baseball cap and head for the garage. The sun is on its way up, so we’ve got to get a move on. We’re after the early morning Red Snapper – New Zealand’s favourite fish. I hook up the boat to the wife’s CRV and drive the 100yds to the beach. John is already down there looking at his watch and shaking his leg impatiently. 
We find a spare spot on the beach and launch the boat. The whole of Castor Bay is already down there, nearly 10 boats already. The race is on for the best harbour swims. Auckland harbour is one of the biggest natural harbours in the world. An island volcano – Rangitoto sits slap bang in the middle of it and dominates the horizon. Rangitoto was formed less than 200 years ago and is now completely covered in pohutakawa trees, a small bush-like tree that blossoms bright red around Christmas time. The island’s ancient and now hardened lava flow provides plenty of underwater features for harbour fish to feed off. That’s where the Castor Bay regatta will head for sure.
There is a deep channel 200yds off Rangitoto that is used as the main harbour-shipping lane. The channel is deep and good fish can be caught, although if the harbourmaster catches you anchored in it, get prepared to have your boat and tackle confiscated! I’ve had a close shave in there myself, not with the harbourmaster, but with a huge Australian oil tanker. I didn’t see her coming one morning (these things are huge! god knows how I missed it!) Her skipper didn’t sound her horn, and she passed me about 20m away. Her wake was three metres high and I thought she was going to sink us. My boat is pretty small and not designed to handle such a wake!
All Aucklanders have a ‘tinnie’. A ‘tinnie’ is typically a two to four man aluminium boat. They are light and can be launched single-handed. Mine is a Fryan 15ft with a Yamaha 40hp. It’s perfect for fishing and can pull a wake board or skis. Anyway, back to the story.
I held on to the boat ‘white knuckle’ style and just about rode the wake. I lost an anchor and a berley pot but I was still afloat and, more importantly, still alive! Her skipper was up on the galley looking down at us and pointing to his temple and accusing us of being insane as she made her way into Auckland docks. Male bravado ensued and we replied accordingly. Funny how gestures and expletives are the same all over the world! We then legged it, fishing over for the day.
Harbour Species
Today, we’re not heading for the channel. We’ve got the knowledge. We let the masses waz off into the distance and we chug our way 300m around to the next bay. Cambell’s Bay is the next bay north from Castor bay. It has a reef that drops off to sand about 250-300yds off-shore. Apologies if I switch in and out of metric and imperial – kiwis are metric, I still think in imperial. I can’t seem to break the habit. We anchor in about 12m of water. We wait for the tide to spin us round and drop the berley pot. Dawn is breaking and the pond is indeed flat as a pancake.
Berley is an essential tool in attracting harbour fish to feed in your swim. Chop some of your bait into small chunks, put it in a pot with holes in the side, tie it and drop it down with your anchor and bob’s your uncle. Dead water is crap fishing; you need a tide to attract the fish. Best fishing tides in the harbour are an hour or so after the switch to incoming. They are not as strong as mid-tides and for some reason the slow down before high tide is not as productive. We throw our rigs down tide of the berley, hopefully where the fish are already feeding. Old bait is best for your berley, the smellier and more unpleasant the grog the better!
We are targeting the ‘wily’ shallow water snapper, however our berley will attract other species. If we take a John Dory or a big Kohwai (mackerel family!) they are both good eating. Kowhai need bleeding immediately to keep the flesh white. I actually prefer Kowhai and Dory to snapper on the plate and a big Kowhai is an excellent sport fish. Kiwis still maintain their allegiance to the beloved snapper. Other species that we may get into are kingfish, trevelly , gurnard, sand sharks, hammerheads, stingrays and barracouta. 
All are pretty unpleasant apart from Trevelly and Kingy’s! If we hook a harbour kingfish then we’re lucky – and have hooked the best harbour water sport fish in the world. Kingy’s have a unique flavour, but most anglers return them to fight another day.
They can get up to 50kgs – big fish to handle on the beach caster I can tell you, they are good looking fish and part of the kowhai, trevelly, mackerel family. They’ll take a live garfish, a foot under a balloon in anything from 1m to 30m of water. They swim through the harbour channels chasing shoals of baitfish (small kowhai, yellowfin mackerel, garfish etc) at certain times of the day and season. The other species mentioned here are usually full of worms and not considered palatable. The Red Snapper
We want snapper. Our berley is a combination of an old minced up barracouta from the last outing, some left-over squid, dead possum guts (roadkill) and some bought frozen pilchards.
Big snapper are not stupid. Even though they have hard lips with teeth-like protrusions, they can feel a piece of bait that is anchored to a large sinker and will consequently spit it. We use 20lb line on a fixed spool reel, a decent 6 to 7ft boat rod, swivel tied to a 40lb hard nylon trace with an end and sliding hook rig. A
