Seaway and Close Inshore Report Monday 13th December 2010

Conditions

• Wind: N  5-10  knots
• Preceeding 3 Days Wind : NE – NNW 5–15 knots
• Barometer – 1008.6 rising to 1010.3
• Swell: 1m NE Swell
• Water Clarity 0.5-1m
• Tide : BOM: Low tide at 6.49 am, High tide at 01.26am  ( 0.46-1.24) Actual top of tide 2.30am
• Time Fished: 01.00am to 07.15am
• Moon Phase: Day of the  first quarter moon.
• Water Temp 21.2-25.9 Degrees C

Notes

Scattered Clouds, Lumpy NE Swell. Phosphorescence in the seaway at the top of the tide. Some suspended ribbon weed around the north wall.  Dirty water runoff from half tide down  Lots of bait schools close inshore from the seaway to the arti.

Report

On the water by 1am, we moved into the seaway.  Unfortunately we were met with a high level of phosphorescence and water around 22 degrees, we gave it a quick fish before deciding to head away from there and look for warmer water.  We didn't have to go far before the phosphorescence lessened to a point where it was fishable again and the water warmed up a bit, we also found the fish.  We threw around some poppers and landed a couple of small bigeyes, then lost a few more before they shut down.  We moved on tried a few other spots, plenty of fish around but nothing that we could tempt.  We moved back into the seaway for dawn, unfortunately the seaway was a mess with the runout and big pressure waves so we messed around the pipeline a bit.  Just as the sky started to lighten bigeyes started to  hit the surface.  We had loads of hits and the fish were bowwaving the lures but hookups were rare.  Dad managed one fish around 45cm, once that fish was landed they spooked and we had no more hits.  Tried drifting the north wall but caught no fish there.   We moved out of the seaway and headed south looking for tuna, by the time we got about level with the artificial reef at narrowneck I decided it was too lumpy to continue that so we headed to the arti and found some birds over a patch of fish feeding.  They turned out to be a mix of Tailor, Australian Bonito and big Slimey Mackerel.  Fishing was easy one cast with a gillies baitfish and you were on, if the hooks pulled another fish would grab it.  All the fish were small though, average size would have been about 30cm.  After catching 20 or so fish we switched to poppers and caught tailor with multiple strikes per retrieve, all good fun but would have been good if the fish were a bit bigger.  After an hour we moved on and checked out the Scottish Prince wreck.  Same thing as the arti, loads of tailor, slimies and bonito.  After catching more of those we headed back in, saw some more small tailor busting up in the seaway but they were quite scattered so we gave it away.

Not a bad trip probably over 40 fish landed but only 1 was over 40cm, lots of baitfish schools just offshore the next strong SE blow should see them coming in the seaway.  The north wall was a write off with dirty water, weed and lumpy dangerous swell.  The bigeyes are in numbers over the pipeline they should fish better later in the week when we get the early morning run in tides.