3 reports in the one post this week. Good morning run in tides had me fishing for 3 days in a row. No more fishing for me until after chrissie. Anyway on with the reports...
Tuesday 20th December 2011
5-10kts NNW 0.5m NE swell
Into the seaway at 2.30am, spent some time scouting various locations for active fish but found none which is fairly typical for the seaway during summer. Sounding around the north wall at first light I saw some good showings of fish near the dropoff so dropped down a 3" gulp chartpearl on a 1/2oz head. That had me hooked to a a decent bigeye within a few minutes. As the sky began to lighten I started seeing some surface hits and soon landed a couple of bigeye trevally on poppers. More schools of feeding fish came up and I was soon surrounded by feeding bigeyes, mostly smaller fish around 35-40cm but the occasional larger 50cm+ fish as well. I landed about 10 bigeyes in varying sizes before they went down, mostly on twisties. Chased some fish on the flats and picked up some small bonito around 25-30cm in size. Went back to the wall and threw some poppers at it, had one very big Tailor get airborne on the strike and cut me off seconds later. Caught another 5 tailor on poppers 3 of the fish were in the low 60's the others mid 40's. Moved offshore after that looking for tuna and wasn't until I was headed back that I found a big school of striped tuna, they stayed up and for the first half hour were quite happy to hit anything, I got them on 20g twisties, 15g gillies baitfish and 14 gram blue sea rocks. Landed 5 and lost a few others. Once they went down I called it a day.
Wednesday 21st December 2011
5-10kts S, 1m NE Swell
Into the seaway at 3.45am started off trolling an xr10 as I wanted to spend some time trying to figure out some decent trolling runs along current lines. Found a good location straight away with multiple hits on every pass. They were bigeyes in the 40-50cm range and I landed 6 over the next hour, plus I got one casting into the wash. Some bonito popped up on the surface and weren't fussy hitting a trolled xr10 as well as metals. Probably landed a dozen or so. No surface feeding by other fish. Switched to poppers and landed 5 tailor, all small fish around 40-45cm. Moved offshore to look for tuna but found none. Coming back to the wall after the tide had turned I was working a popper through the wash when it was hit by something neon green which turned out to be a 41cm Surge Wrasse(i think) a very odd catch for the seaway and especially on a popper. That was it for the day.
Thursday 22nd December 2011
10-15kts SE, 1.5m ESE Swell
Moved into the seaway at 3.45am and started trolling dad picked up a nice bigeye straight away and I hooked and lost a good fish as well. Found some bigeyes feeding on surface around the pipeline and we landed another 3 fish on twisties and poppers. Fished the edges for a while and dad landed one more bigeye on poppers. Big seas made the ends of the walls unfishable and offshore was also out. Spent the rest of the time in the broadwater, found some yellowtail kingfish feeding on the surface and had them make a couple of hits on poppers but no hookups. Rained alot.
Tuesday pics
Wednesday Pics
Thursday Pics
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Nice work Craig and good to see some sizeable tailor there still. Hoping to get out between xmas and new year. cheers Gordo