Text: Alan Bulmer Featured image: Scott Gray For many years now I’ve been spin fishing with low stretch conventional or fused braid. The main reasons that I originally switched to using braid were the increased casting distance, improved sensitivity to takes and a dramatic reduction in twist when using bladed spinners. At present, I’m using 1.5 PE conventional braid with a rated breaking strain of 8.8 kilograms and … Continue reading MEMORY FREE SHOCK LEADERS
Text: Alan Bulmer Featured image: Guy Harvey For many years now I’ve been spin fishing with low stretch conventional or fused braid. The main reasons that I originally switched to using braid were the increased casting distance, improved sensitivity to takes and a dramatic reduction in twist when using bladed spinners. At present, I’m using 1.5 PE conventional braid with a rated breaking strain of 8.8 kilograms and … Continue reading SHOCK LEADERS WITH BRAID
Text: Alan Bulmer Images: Alan Bulmer and Geoff Dunne As you know, I predominantly stalk (or hunt) kahawai, snapper and trevally on the flats and 90% of the time I only use five fly patterns. These flies are both 5 – 7.5 cm in length and all are fished sub-surface. This is deliberate. A couple of years ago I discovered an article in the journal Marine and Freshwater … Continue reading FLY PATTERNS FOR THE FLATS
Not every fishing is session is full on action, especially when fishing a lure. Despite what the angling magazines would have us believe, it is not uncommon for anglers to have blank sessions or sessions where very few fish are hooked. Even professional guides have tough days where the fish do not seem to want to cooperate. On these days it is important to make … Continue reading NAILING PERCH (REDFIN) ON LURES
Not every fishing is session is full on action, especially when fishing a lure. Despite what the angling magazines would have us believe, it is not uncommon for anglers to have blank sessions or sessions where very few fish are hooked. Even professional guides have tough days where the fish do not seem to want to cooperate. On these days it is important to make … Continue reading HOW TO BECOME A BETTER LURE FISHER
Text: Alan Bulmer Images: Mark Hoffman As you have probably gathered from the images posted on Active Angling I am a firm advocate of wearing camouflage clothing when fishing the flats, especially when using a fly rod. While it may not make much of a difference what you wear if you only fish around dawn or dusk once the sun rises and bathes the flats in light … Continue reading DOES CAMOUFLAGE CLOTHING WORK?
Soft plastics, or soft baits, were not readily available in New Zealand until the early 21st Century. Since then the growth in popularity of these lures has been phenomenal due to their success in catching a wide variety of fish species. I started using them in the late 1990’s when I imported some Sassy shads from the USA. They were an immediate success, especially on … Continue reading HOW TO FISH SOFT PLASTIC LURES
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Text: Alan Bulmer Lead image: Sport Fishing magazine Gel Spun Polyethylene (GSP) fishing lines get their strength from the weaving or laminating of many polyethylene fibres. True braids, as their name suggests, achieve this by ‘braiding’ fibres together while fused braids use a proprietary form of ‘heat welding’ the fibres together. Fused GSP lines are generally cheaper, stiffer and thicker than braid of … Continue reading AVOIDING WIND KNOTS WITH BRAID
Text: Alan Bulmer Lead Image: Mark Hoffman New Zealand is a long narrow country and no point is more than 120 kilometres from the sea. This peculiar geography, coupled with differential heating and cooling of land and water during the day, means that irrespective of where you are wind is likely to feature at some point during the day. If you do not … Continue reading STRATEGIES FOR DEALING WITH THE WIND
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For several years I’ve had a growing feeling that fluorocarbon monofilament simply does not live up to the marketing hype. It is twice as expensive as nylon monofilament but is it twice as good in terms of performance? The short answer is No and this piece will explain why. Recently I lost a large kingfish from the shore after a torrid 20 minute “no holds barred” … Continue reading THE FLUOROCARBON MYTH
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