Seaway Report Thursday 3rd March 2011

Conditions

• Wind: NW  5-10  knots
• Preceeding 3 Days Wind : NW - SE 5-20 knots
• Swell: 0.5 m SE Swell
• Water Clarity 1-5m
• Tide : BOM: Low tide at 01.00 pm, High tide at 07.36am  ( 0.20-1.53)
• Time Fished: 03.00am to 09.00am
• Moon Phase: 1 day before new moon.
• Barometer 1011.1-1011.4
• Water Temp 26.5-28.0 Degrees C

Notes

Some clouds mainly sunny. Water quality was excellent in all areas, very clear at the top of tide 5m +.  Divers and spearfisherman around the north wall after 8am. No significant swell.

Report

We moved into the seaway at 3.00am, scouted around for some fish and found a few active bigeyes around the north wall.  using 9cm Rapala skitter pops we managed 6 up to 45cm before moving on to scout for some more fish.  Around a beacon we managed one more bigeye and a few more hits before moving on.   Just on dawn we moved back to the north wall and caught a few more bigeyes on poppers best going 55cm but it was a bit quiet.  We decided to give livebaiting a go so we went and caught some pike, they were a bit tricky today so it took us a bit longer to get the 2o fish we needed.  At around 7am we came back and tried drifting with the incoming tide but it was obvious that the tide was running too fast even for 4oz sinkers.  We tried the south wall for a while unsuccessfully.  As the tide started to slow we moved back to the north wall and the response was immediate, with a couple of small jewies of 63cm coming onboard.  Unfortunately, this was when my camera decided it had enough and promptly shut down.  Of course murphys law dictates that when you have no camera to capture the moment you'll definitely get a good fish.  We kept going and landed 3 tailor from 45-55cm.  It wasn't until I sent down the runt of the litter, a little pike around 15cm long that I hooked on on the fish of the day, it hit hard and fast and tore off about 50m before doggedly fighting beneath the boat for the next half an hour, it was a very tough drawn out fight but finally a 93cm yellowtail kingfish was in the boat.  A picture of the fish was taken by the lovely lady from fisheries patrol who had been watching the fight for about 15mins(A big thankyou to Philppa for emailing me the pic).  By the time we got back to the north wall, divers and spearfisherman were all around it and the fish were shut down so we gave it away.

So that was it, another good day with some reasonable fish and it was good to land a yellowtail kingfish for once.  They are one of the hardest fighting fish around and its no wonder so many get away, especially around the pipeline.  I was using 20lb line and the fish had the advantage throughout the whole fight, balls of muscle with fins.  Awesome fish.  Not alot of fish today but still a good trip.  I'll be taking 2 cameras from now on.