Work-ups – a wild gannet chase!

Find the food and you’ll often encounter what eats it, and this is certainly true for schools of small baitfish. No predator, large or small, can resist the opportunity to participate in a baitfish-eating smorgasbord.

For most recreational anglers the term ‘baitfish’ describes a wide range of schooling fish, including whitebait, anchovies, pilchards, mullet (both yellow-eyed and grey), piper/garfish and various species of mackerel. However, the term can also be used to cover larger schooling species such as trevally, kahawai, small tuna species and koreru by anglers targeting big-game fish (i.e. marlin, sharks, large tuna [bluefin, bigeye and yellowfin] and broadbill swordfish).

In this feature we will focus on coastal baitfish activity; more specifically how to identify a situation and then take advantage of it.

While baitfish are often eaten out of sight, deep beneath the water’s surface, they can also be driven