Seaway Report Friday 11th February

Conditions

• Wind: SE  10-15  knots
• Preceeding 3 Days Wind : SE 10-20 knots
• Swell: 1.5 m SE Swell
• Water Clarity 0.5-1.5m
• Tide : BOM: Low tide at 07.35 pm, High tide at 01.32am  ( 0.58-1.20)
• Time Fished: 03.00am to 09.00am
• Moon Phase: day of the first quarter.
• Barometer 1017.6-1018.6
• Water Temp 24.9-26.1 Degrees C

Notes

Some showers and rain, occasional sunny patches. Too rough to go offshore. Water quality was excellent in all areas even at the bottom of the tide.  Lots of sharks around.  Lots of bait holding in the seaway.

Report

On the water at 3.30am we checked out a few spots looking for active fish but found none, the constant rain didn't help.  We moved into the seaway for dawn and conditions were marginal with quite a strong SE wind and a decent swell.  With waves breaking across the entrance going offshore was not an option.  We tried around the pipeline for a while before moving over to fish the edge of the north wall.  We managed a few hits on minnows but no hookups until we reached the northern side of the wall.  Conditions here were quite rough and needed constant repositioning of the boat.  Dad hooked up on a nice fish which made a few nice runs before the sharks caught up with him.  What was a nice bigeye around 60cm  came to the boat missing half his body.  We hooked up on some more fish that were again chased by sharks.  We did manage to land a couple more bigeyes  up to 45cm and about half a dozen tailor up to 45cm on twisties.  We switched to plastics, because of the minimal tidal run we used 3/8th oz jigheads on a 5" gulp minnow.  We hooked one more tailor at 48cm and 5 jewies up to 60cm fishing on the bottom.  We also got a few more dart casting twisties at the end of the wall.     Saw the guy from coastal sports fishing land a 84cm Tailor which is a monster, the sharks had a go at him too but he managed to get him up mostly intact. Thats the best Tailor I've seen landed in the seaway and it was taken on a live pike.

So another day down, not a bad fishing day with some reasonable fish landed, nothing huge but good consistent fishing nonetheless. I'm going to try livebaiting again soon for larger fish, lures certainly catch fish and are alot of fun to use but they are a poor imitation of the real thing.