CATCH PRO TEAM MEMBER – MOHAMMED ALI

MO SAY’S…

I’ve been lucky enough to get out quite a bit recently. As usual, everybody’s been heading out wide, chasing the Great Barrier Island hype, while I’ve been sticking in close.

Bottom end of Waiheke: South of Gannet Rock, as well as east of Shag Rock is absolutely loaded with bait. We were fishing directly on top of it with a couple of decent workups holding good snapper. I think it helps going middle of the week as there is less boat traffic and less unnatural noise/disturbances, allowing the fish to gather up these bait balls and have a feeding frenzy.

While it’s true that work-ups with dolphins tend to fish the best, if the dolphins don’t show up and the bait is more scattered we still catch good fish. All you need is one big drift through scattered birds and you’ll probably catch fish all the way along. Kaburas and softbaits have been the best for these slow drifts, however in the workups big 200g Beta Bugs and 150g Boss lures definitely get the better-sized fish.