Broadwater and Seaway Trip Report Friday 25th June 2010

Conditions

• Wind: SSW 5-10knots
• Swell: 1.5-2m SE Swell
• Water Clarity 2m
• Tide : Low tide at 01.39am, High Tide at 07.11am
• Time Fished: 02.30am to 08.00am
• Moon Phase: Full moon on Saturday 26th June.

Notes

Alot of baitfish around, mullet, frogmouth pilchards and hardyheads.  Most locations had active fish though some were hesitant to hit and only nudged the lures.

Report

The first spot we looked at had active fish with the occasional bustup, we tried shallow runners first, Megabass Vision 110's had multiple hookups but we lost quite a few, we got some to the side of the boat before the  hooks pulled and they looked like a mix of small jewfish and tailor.  We did manage a couple of mid 40's tailor.  I switched to a Eclipse Slight edge 90 (vib) and Dad went to a squidgy fish in black gold on 1/8th oz head.  Dad soon landed a nice flathead around the 40cm mark  and I got smashed by a good fish which turned out to be a good wintery Magrove Jack at 50cm.  Things went quiet after that so we moved on.

Next spot looked even better with lots of fish hitting the surface and tons of bait around.  Dad was first on with a nice tailor of around 40cm on a Zipbaits ZBL popper.  I tried a number of lures before settling on a Zipbaits Vib58-13g in a pearl-green colour.  I landed a small jewfish of around 45cm, then a couple of tailor then proceeded to drop the next 4 fish.  Unfortunately the small hooks on the vib 58 means that getting a proper hookup can be tricky, the fish seem to like them though.

First light was upon us so we motored into the seaway and had a look around.  The swell was up again (1.5-2m)so we decided to try a bit of wash fishing.  Because the swell was up and the wash areas were out of reach I decided on using 'The Behemoth' a 9'6" Daiwa  Emblem Pro HFS with a Daiwa Emcast Sport 4500.  Spooled with 20lb Stren Sonic Braid this outfit is capable of 75-85 metre casts using a 65-85gram raider or slug.  Not an outfit you want t0 be casting all day, but if you need distance its the only way to go.  On this occasion I decided on a 65gram Raider.  The first cast proved it to be the right choice and I soon had a 40cm tailor at the boat, that was soon followed by 4 Giant Trevally from 45-50cm in quick succession.  Dad using conventional gear with a 40gram knight landed only 1 tailor at around 40cm and one queenfish at 35cm.  These fish went off the bite so we moved  locations and found a school of small bigeye trevally in the 30cm range, despite being small they were quite happy to hit a 65 gram raider.  We managed 4 of these before they too went off the bite.  Next we tried jigging in the eddy and I hooked up on a good fish on a Zipbaits Vib 90-35g, after a decent 10 minute fight a 58cm Giant Trevally was at the boat.  Dad managed the smallest GT of the day at the same spot by jigging a 20gram twistie under the boat.

By this time the tide was slowing so we went for a run in the broadwater looking for fish, saw a few scattered birds north of crab but no fish underneath them.  The water was quite dirty despite being the top of the tide. Went back to the seaway had another jig around but got nothing else so we called it a day.