Oceanic currents, move endlessly in circular motion throughout the Worlds Oceans.These currents carry the warmer water toward Land masses and shelf zones creating surface currents in the form eddies from nutrient rich deep water being pushed toward the surface. Bait and the Pelagic fish that follow will not be far away from these breaks in the main current flow.
The main current however will not stop, and these areas will eventually breakup and dissipate as will the bait.
The currents that hit the East Coast of the North Island generally move from North to South, circulating as it moves down the Coastline, some currents are stronger and some are weaker, moving toward the coast and moving out.
Understanding how this relates to Sea surface Temperature Maps becomes much clearer if you know the general direction of the current.
Current can bring a mother load of bait and it take it away just as fast.
Tides
Tide is the vertical movement of water. Current is the horizontal movement of water. In a 24-hour period there are 2 high and 2 low tides. When the tide is rising, it’s known as flooding. When the tide is falling, it's known as ebbing. When there is no horizontal or vertical movement of the water, the tide is slack.
Tide is influenced by the Moon, which Iam not going to get into but it does have an influence on the height of the tides, which I will get into later.
Tide is an important part of Game fishing, because it influences the movement of fish.
Bait fish normally rise when the tide is at the bottom or at the top moving into the areas of food usually up on the plateaus or a rise, this is a time when bait becomes visual to surface hunters, IE, Bird life etc and is the start of a chain of events before the bite time.
Its when the tide starts gaining momentum after the slack periods that the bait is at its most vulnerable, the current will pick up over these higher points and is the time when the bait will school up and seek the safety of the ledges. The larger predators now this and move in.
This bite time can change due to the height's of the tides, but generally it is one to two hours after the slack period when the current is at its strongest.
I have always used tide height tables rather than tide times and religiously log bite times and have found this to be very interesting to say the least.
This site http://ofu.co.nz/graph/tides.php is by far the best site that I have used, it gives you times and height's which make it very easy to understand.
If there is a big tide, I have found that the bite is closer to the slack period.
Cheers
Paul.
