Well the Snapper have eluded me so far, (no great surprise there) but the Gurnard have made a welcome return to our beaches.  We’ve had some reasonably settled weather lately and flat calm conditions are perfect for targeting the grunters.

I’ve managed to catch 4 of them in the last two months. Two at Ocean Beach and two at Whirinaki. I made a couple of trips to Aropaoanui in the hope of finding some there, but it wasn’t to be.

Gurnard are very keen on fresh strips of Kahawai for bait and will often take that over conventional baits such as pilchard.

Yesterday I was fishing with pilchard, skipjack, crab and kahawai. Only kahawai produced any bites.

If you’ve caught these fish before you will know they’re not the easiest things to fillet.
Try this method, it works great 🙂

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