Written By: Alan Bulmer Photos: Paul Smith & Mark Hoffman Recently I received a fascinating e-mail from Dr Mike Ladle in the UK describing his experiment to see whether fish activity increased around dawn. Mike is convinced that fishing at the change of light at dawn is the most productive time of day and designed an experiment to try and prove this. Mike actually recorded the number of … Continue reading IS DAWN THE BEST TIME TO FISH?
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Several months ago I wrote a rod review on the innovative Kilwell Xantu 9’6” #8 weight fly rod. Check it out:- https://activeanglingnz.com/2015/03/27/kilwell-xantu-96-8-weight-rod-review/ One of the things that I noticed as soon as I held the rod was that the diameter of the cork handle was slightly larger than any of the other fly rods in my arsenal. In real terms it was around 2.5 millimetres wider which … Continue reading WHY THE SHAPE OF FLY ROD HANDLES IS IMPORTANT
One of the most sought after estuarine flats targets is trevally. Nicknamed the “Silver Prince” they are a difficult fish to hook and often can be even harder to land. The larger specimens encountered in estuarine environments tend to hunt alone, unlike in the open ocean where schools of fish are common. Tagging studies by local fisheries scientists have shown that trevally are not a wide ranging … Continue reading TARGETING TREVALLY
In order to successfully fish estuarine flats it is important to be always on the lookout for places where fish will likely congregate. Features such as subsurface rocks and weed beds are regularly identified as fish holding areas and need no further discussion. However, one of the most obvious fish attracting features in an estuary is one that is often overlooked completely by anglers, namely … Continue reading MOORED BOATS ARE FISH MAGNETS
The first thing I do when I first walk onto an estuarine flat is to take 10 – 15 minutes to look around through my polaroid’s and see what is happening. I’m looking for two things, fish movement and bird activity, and while I’m looking I try to keep my own movements as unobtrusive as possible. Checking for fish movement, especially in the shallow margins, … Continue reading FINDING FISH USING BIRDS
One of the most successful techniques for spin fishing on the flats is to “wet line” soft plastics. This technique works best if the spinning reel is spooled with braid. My preference is to use 7 kilogram Nanofil or Fireline and attach a 1.5 metre length of 7 kilogram Amnesia monofilament as a shock trace. Fly fishermen will probably understand the principles involved as they are almost identical … Continue reading “WETLINING” SOFT PLASTICS
One of the most important changes that an angler needs to make in switching from fresh to saltwater fly fishing is to the leader which joins the fly line to the fly. Saltwater fish species are much larger than fresh, more powerful and live in terrain that is likely to damage a leader. Oyster shell encrusted rocks and horse mussels take no prisoners. In New … Continue reading LEADERS FOR SALTWATER FLY FISHING
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Back in the day most anglers timed their trips to the Tongariro river to coincide with the main rainbow trout spawning runs which occurred over the winter months. Between 1960 and 2000 these runs were mostly concentrated between May – August. However there has been a major change in the timing of the rainbow trout spawning runs since 2002 and the fabled winter runs have … Continue reading WHICH MONTHS ARE BEST TO FISH THE TONGARIRO?
Dr. Mike Ladle is not only a world renowned marine biologist but one of the saltwater spin fishing pioneers in the UK. Over the years he has written multiple books on spin fishing as well as regular columns in several fishing magazines. Mike has kindly agreed to let AANZ publish a few vignettes from his book “Operation Sea Angler”. Even though the species of fish … Continue reading THE HOW, WHERE, WHEN AND WHY FISH FEED
Treble hooks – do they do more damage to fish than singles? I’ve recently received a few adverse comments about my use of treble hooks on lures. I took this criticism to heart and set out to see if there was a sound scientific basis to the proposition that treble hooks cause more damage to fish than single hooks. I found the answer to this … Continue reading TREBLE V SINGLE HOOKS ON LURES
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