Seaway Report Wednesday 9th November 2011

Into the seaway at 3.30am, the tide was in the bottom half of the run-in and there was a 1m NE swell, just enough to make it uncomfortable on the points.  Had a quick look around for tarpon but no interest at the usual locations so switched to minnows to work the washes at dawn.  No interest in the minnows so we switched to 20g twistys and managed to pull a couple of small tailor on the flats, dropped a couple of others and I managed to foulhook a luderick. Water was quite dirty around the north wall due to the constant northerlies, the water around the south wall was clean and clear though.

We had a look down near wavebreak but nothing there so moved back to the pipeline.  Saw a few surface hits there but nothing we could get a cast into.  A couple more weeks and it should have some good surface feeding in that area on dawn.

Switched to poppers with dad going for the 9cm skitter pop and me using the 98mm cultiva tango dancer stick bait.  Dad hooked up on a good fish close to the wall which gave him a bit of a workout and had me thinking decent trevally but it ended up being a nice 74cm Tailor.  I hooked a tailor which promptly jumped off, dad hooked and landed another tailor around 40cm.  I finally managed to stay connected to a tailor and landed one around the same size.  Dad managed to land another 2 Tailor around mid 40's while I managed to lose the other fish I hooked.

They went off the bite so we moved back into the broadwater and had a look around.  There was some bait holding near Crab island, there were a few tailor into them and I managed 2 more  in the low 40's on twisties.  Spent half an hour working the tango dancer over the flats and managed a couple of nice hits but no hookups.

We moved back into the seaway for the top of the tide and first cast with the tango had a tailor hit it as soon as it landed.  Landed that fish and the next cast it got smashed by a big tailor that got airborne on the strike, unfortunately the hooks pulled shortly after.  Nothing else after that so we switched to vision 110's in the chartreuse color and worked the dirty water at the end of the wall.  Dad managed one fish around 40cm and lost another, I landed one mid 30's.  That was pretty much it though.  Didn't see too many fish landed today by other boats, just one small jewie on a livie.

Good to see tailor hitting surface lures so early in the season, interesting that they preferred surface lures over every other lure type we used, also interesting that they were still hitting them hours after the sun had risen.  The dirty water might have had something to do with that making them more confident to hunt just below the surface.  I don't often use surface lures in dirty water but  after that result I'll definitely be giving them a go in the future.
Water temps have dropped due to the northerlies, ranging from 18.5-19.9 degrees.