Fishing with Family in Auckland 2:Wairangi Wharf!|New Zealand Life!

The other day, the weather was good on the weekend, so we had another go at taking kids fishing in Auckland. As usual, we are taking our primary school-age son and pre-school age son, so we need to go to a reasonably safe spot for fishing rather than going on a boat or a rock. This time, we tried a little wharf called Wairangi Wharf, and it was a very cute nice spot for a family fishing.

Where is Wairangi Wharf?

We found information about Wairangi wharf on the internet when we were looking for a good family fishing spot. It is located near Home bay, west of the Auckland harbor bridge connecting Auckland CBD and north shore city.

We drove from west Auckland where we live, through Ponsonby following car navigation. We came out to a small street called Wairangi street which has a dead end.

We parked on this street, and found a stairs on the side, at the end of the street. When you walk down the stairs, you arrive at the Wairangi Wharf, today’s destination.

A short wooden walkway stretches over the water. Surrounding the bay is all quiet residential area, and you don’t see any shops or commercial buildings nearby.

So if you wish to spend a good hours here, you will need to bring everything with you including food and of course, the fishing gear.

Beautiful fishing spot with view of the Harbor Bridge

It was a beautiful day for fishing. Wairangi Wharf was a great spot to see the ocean view.

On the right hand side, you could see the famous Auckland harbor bridge, without noise of cars going by. Just you, bridge and sound of waves.

When we turned back the way we came, we spotted a small patch of sand (small beach?). We wondered if we could access there but first, started getting our fishing gear ready.

There were few people coming for a walk while we were there.

According to information on the internet, this place could get pretty busy in summer fishing season. On this day, it was a beautiful day in July, just one other man was fishing there.

We stayed for a good hour and half, and during that time three pairs of people came for a walk, but no one else joined for fishing.

Caught a Bait Fish!! Yay!

After about 20 minutes into fishing… OH? Something is pulling our line!

A huge excitement for our school-age son! So we careful pulled our line out and…..

We caught a piper!

We were so excited, especially after the last trip when we didn’t catch anything.

It was about 30cm long piper. Pipers are supposed to be awesome bait fish for people aiming for snapper and kingfish. Fresh live pipers are the pest for catching these fish, apparently.

But today, we are not going for snappers…. well our fishing gear is not catered for such a big fish. we are actually using Sabiki hooks that is only good for catching bait fish. But that’s OK! We (both parents and kids!) are all fishing novice and we need to get some experience fishing safely before going for the bigger fish!

So for us, even just a bait fish is a GREAT CATCH! A Successful fishing day out!!

Home Bay Beach on the next street

Now our elder son was super happy after the first catch, but our younger son (pre-school age) was getting quickly bored. So while Dad and elder son continued to fish, I (mum) and younger son went for a walk.

We went out to see if we could access the small patch of beach that we spotted earlier. We walked back to Wairangi street then we walked to another street east of the Wairangi street.

We found a sign saying “Home Bay Beach” and stairs. Going down the stairs, we arrived at the small beach we saw from Wairangi wharf. We could see dad and elder son fishing on the wharf, and they could see us on the Home Bay Beach, too.

This Home Bay Beach was very small and we quickly finished having a look there. There were some small broken shells on the ground, but it was too small beach to enjoy beach combing.

It is however, safe small patch of sand to let little one run around.

Two Pipers caught at Wairangi Bay!

In the end, after about hour and half there, we caught total of two pipers! Well, our last fishing trip on Tamaki drive was zero-fish caught in the end, so compared to that, it was a big improvement.

We decided that we are going to use these pipers as bait for our next trip. So we took them home and put them in the freezer straight away.

We as novice fisher family, are thinking of getting a little bit bigger hock and line, so we can use this piper as bait to aim for other types of fish, on our next fishing trip.