We conducted our first Surf Fishing Clinic on the Venus Bay Beach 1 on Saturday 31st May 2014. Start time was 10am with 5 adults and 2 kids attending.
The aim of the clinic was to cover reading the beach, safety, casting, rigging, bait and lure fishing and looking after your catch.
At 10 am, it was 2 hours into the run in tide. This was perfect to highlight how the incoming tide was to work from the major hole on Beach 1 and flow along the gutter to the north.
Photo 1 (below) shows the deep low tide hole, which was producing many mullet and small salmon on pipi.
Photo 2 (below) shows the the gutter starting to fill as the tide comes in.
Photo 3 (below) now shows the water flowing into the gutter which will be over 6 feet on the high tide.
We started fishing with squid strips and blue bait as the tide continued to flow from the hole. Also to create activity, the group was also spinning metal lures.
At first, the salmon were in the 25-30 cm range. As it got closer to high tide, the size increased to 40cm plus. Young Noah caught a 43cm Salmon (main photo) using small squid strips.
When the baits were quiet, spinning continued to produce fish especially the smaller lures (25-40gram).
Over 100 fish were caught and released on the day. And those who wanted a feed were well and truly satisfied.
For anyone interested in our Surf Fishing Clinics, please email us at [email protected]
Footnote. On Sunday afternoon, in the overcast conditions, the size of the Salmon had increased to 50cm plus from the same gutter with many multiple hook-ups on bait as well as solid fish on lures.