Seaway and Inshore Report Wednesday 19th January 2011

Conditions

• Wind: E  5-10  knots
• Preceeding 3 Days Wind : SE & NE 5-15 knots
• Swell: 1 m E Swell
• Water Clarity 0.5-1m
• Tide : BOM: Low tide at 00.37 pm, High tide at 07.51am  ( 0.03-1.54)
• Time Fished: 03.45am to 08.30am
• Moon Phase: 1 day before full moon.
• Water Temp 26.3-26.8 Degrees C

Notes

Some clouds. Dirty water around the north wall even at the top of the tide, cleaner water on the south wall & rest of seaway.  Lots of bait offshore in 30-40m between the Narrowneck Arti & Oracle.  Mack Tuna schools feeding on surface in the same area.

Report

On the water at 3.45am we moved into the seaway, tried slugs, minnows, poppers but got zip, no hits either.  Water was quite dirty which may have been a factor.  At sunup we moved offshore and followed the birds, which were all flying south.  We followed them all the way down in line with the Oracle and found some good tuna schools working the surface.  First cast with 40gram Raiders and we had a double hookup, unfortunately we lost both those fish, one after about 5 seconds, the other next to the boat.  We chased more schools around for the next few hours landing 6 mack Tuna from 60-69cm, losing that many again.  They weren't easy to get a hookup on and required alot of  manouvering to find the right school.  We worked our way north and further out with some large schools at about 40m east of the narrowneck arti but by this time they were quite fussy and hard to get a cast into.  We gave it away and went back to the  seaway for the top of the tide, jigged plastics for a bit with only 1 60cm Jewfish as a result.  Gave it away at  8.30am.

So not a bad day overall, good to see some Tuna out there so early in the season, some years they don't show up until early march.  Its been a excellent pelagic season so far, hopefully it will continue to get better as we get closer to the peak in March.