Broadwater and Seaway Trip Report 23rd July 2010

Conditions

• Wind: sW 5-15knots
• Swell: 1-1.5m SE Swell
• Water Clarity 3m
• Tide : Low tide at 00.45am, High tide at 06.15am  (0.33 -0.98)
• Time Fished: 02.30am to 07.30am
• Moon Phase: 3 days before full moon.
• Temps 7-13 Degrees C

Notes

Neglible tidal flow. Decent swell coming through but it did not break as anticipated.  No surface activity anywhere.

Report

We launched at 2.30am and headed to spot 1.  This particular spot can have good fish feeding on surface in the right conditions but today all was quiet, I put it down to the lack of tidal flow due to the small tide.  First cast with a Megabass Vision 110 and hooked a nice tailor around the 50cm mark but unfortunately the hooks pulled next to the boat.  We cast around for a while but other than a follow by a small jew nothing else was interested in minnows.  I changed to a Zipbaits vib 50-13g and picked up a flathead around 40cm, a new species for the vibs for me.  I did see a free swimming whaler shark about 1m as well.  Other than that all was quiet, we switched to plastics but nothing was interested.  We moved on to spot 2, nothing was interested there or at spot 3 either.  It was looking like a very tough day.  We moved into the Seaway for dawn, the swell was up but unfortunately not breaking where I needed it to be, a bit too much south in its direction.   We started off with 40gram raiders and soon picked up a couple of 40's tailor and started to catch small bigeye trevally.  I changed to a Vib 90-35g to try an get something a bit bigger and soon hooked up to what I thought was probably another small trevally before it took off and had the reel screaming, that lasted about 30 seconds before the line stopped and I thought I'd dropped the fish.  I still had the fish but it was a bit lighter than when he started, courtesy of a toothy critter probably a shark.  We pulled another couple of trevally before they went quiet, so we moved to a new spot and I dropped the vib to the bottom, a fish must of grabbed it on the way down as when I tightened up I was on.  A short but spirited fight soon had a 69cm Jewie at the boat, a slightly better than average fish but still not a legal one.    After this I hooked 2 more fish but dropped both, I'm pretty sure one was a tailor and the other was another jewie.  That was it for the day, we were off the water by 7.30am.

Lure of the Day: Zipbaits Vib 90-35g