Seaway Report Thursday 4th November 2010

Conditions

• Wind: ENE 10-15  knots
• Swell: 1-1.5 m ESE Swell
• Water Clarity 1-1.5 m
• Tide : BOM: Low tide at 12.21am, High tide at 6.27am  ( 0.07-1.45) Actual top of tide 7.45am
• Time Fished: 02.30am to 07.45am
• Moon Phase: 2 Days before new moon.
• Temps 21-23 Degrees C

Notes

Overcast, rain patches. Very rough and difficult to fish, at the upper limit of safe boating.  Could not fish past the line. Very strong tidal flow.

Report

Moved into the seaway at 2.30am and spent some time checked out a few spots, not many fish around though nothing that was staying in 1 spot anyway, saw some schools moving through but couldn't find them again on the second pass.  At dawn I moved up to the north wall to try some wash fishing for tailor, the was a huge amount of water moving around and I learned very quickly it was not safe out in front of the wall so I stuck to the eddy and the inside edge.  Even here it was very rough but there was plenty of whitewater so I was hopeful of a few fish.  Didn't take long to score my first tailor at 58cm on the system minnow along the face, followed by another 2 around 55cm quickly after.  All 3 fish were taken in the same general area.  Went a bit quiet after that so I changed lures to a megabass vision 110  and began working the edges, wasn't long before I was smashed by a huge fish which proceeded to leap out of the water 3 times in quick succession only to throw the lure on the fourth jump.  He looked every bit of 70cm that fish.  Took a little while before I hooked up again this time landing a  50cm tailor.  One more fish around 45cm followed before it went quiet.   Messed around a bit with plastics while I waited for the tide to slow but the tidal run was so fast even dropshot sinkers were getting stuck on the bottom.  Once the tide started to slow I sent big plastics down for a jewie but got nothing at all, the few times my sounder did decide to work there was absolutely nothing down there.

Today was the last day for my faithful 7 year old Lowrance x40 sounder, its behaviour has become increasingly erratic the last couple of months often losing the bottom signal for minutes at a time.  Its being replaced by a fancy new Lowrance HDS 5.  Will it improve my fishing.. only time will tell.