Thread: Kahawai runs

Hey guys,

Wasn't sure whether or not to post on the other Kahawai thread so I decided to make my own.
As a trout fisherman I do bugger all sea fishing but I was keen to get out to try and get on to some Kahawai spinning in a river mouth. Is anyone able to offer me any info as to when / how long left they will generally run for or if this is a year round thing?

Thanks in advance for any info

Here in Nelson if I set a net for flounder in the estuary in the evenining from about a month before whitebait season opening(couple of weeks before the west coast?) till about a month into the whitebait season it is basicly a wipeout IE I spend a couple of hours removing Kahawai from my net while in the water then pull it in and remove the rest and I might get a couple of flounder for removing a shitload of them.
As it warms the rays come in and I give up on the flounder entirely( 8x two meter rays really fucks your floundernet) and rod fish out of the estuary for snapper, some days plauges of Kahawai attack any bloody thing you put in the water and you cant catch anything else at all, I have tried steaming away from them many times to no avail.

Thankfully from now on generally(mid jan/start of feb) the kahawai taper off tho if one was silly enough to set a flounder net on a evening tide you could expect 40-100 of the net tangling little fuckers in it.

In chch 2 hours before low tide and low tide best bet as long is your in the channel (main bit of mouth ) you will get heaps this time of year
Great fun

At kahurangi lighthouse over xmas in front of the keepers house you couldnt miss with bait from about 3/4 tide till full. Big fish. As big as they get.
Further north in big river there was one pool in particular that was so full of fish it changed the color of the water, they were however all what I would consider undersized..... tho if I was hungry I wouldn't hesitate to keep them.

Thanks for that guys. I might try and get a few mates together and go for a mission this weekend sometime

Nah mate here's the real deal-------------- Go and buy some of those small paddleed tailed silicon flies and fly cast them at any rivrer mouth ay any tide . Mind you best when the whitebait are running. Bloody good fun, also use a slowsinker on a bloody big reel.

I always take a few for the pot from the rakaia mouth about this time of year, on the spinning rod and silver zeds. But when the salmon anglers aren't around and the wind suits, I love casting out a fly on the 8wt for them. Always the chance of a big sea-run at dusk too.



Rakaia mouth is crap for any kahawai at the moment. Its closer to the south side but the southerly swell has chewed out a huge section of beach, so its a big dirty mess. Another week or two will see it settle. This was last night (12th Jan) at high tide. Some lucky angler on a quad from the north side made it back before the swell washed him off the spit.

Looks like a solid wave on that bar Scottrods

Judging from the look of that wave I think I would be packing my surfboard rather than my rod haha. Looks like it's pumping!

Also I spent a couple of hours spinning on Friday night at the thornton river mouth which was tough going. There would have been roughly 15 guys out and in the time I was there one guy landed one and I lost one. Other than that nothing else was caught or hooked from what I saw. Hoping in a week or two time they will start running

Originally Posted by Cspence

Also I spent a couple of hours spinning on Friday night at the thornton river mouth which was tough going. There would have been roughly 15 guys out and in the time I was there one guy landed one and I lost one. Other than that nothing else was caught or hooked from what I saw. Hoping in a week or two time they will start running

Have a crack at yhe Tauranga entrance too. Park at Pilot bay walk around till you get to the beach entrance side and fill ya boots

Plenty of trout in our river only 5mins to get to the river on our quads its awesome.

Yeah I'm lucky with that too. My parents live about 20m from the Ngongotaha river which is ideal when I head home. Plenty of big trout in there!

My son and his mate caught and released 59 on Sunday night from the local river mouth next to the airport.

Geez thats a bloody good haul. Where was that?