Bracing for winter

THECATCH

In 2021, like last year, the transition took longer than usual, with an Indian summer of warm, mostly fine weather lingering into May. It meant that late summerautumn fishing patterns also lingered, with predators hounding anchovies and other bait deep into the month.

In one well-documented event in late April, baitfish threw themselves onto the sand at Rothesay Bay to escape kahawai, small kingfish and snapper, only to fall prey to hundreds of gulls awaiting them on the beach. This was doubtless just one instance of many.

Certainly, April provided some entertaining fishing in among the seemingly