Seaway and Broadwater report Saturday 21st July 2012

Into the seaway at around 3am straight away it was obvious that I was going to be restricted to the west of the pipeline and broadwater.  Wind was around 10-15kts of southerly,  a strong tidal flow plus a  2.5-3m swell was making the entrance a dangerous place to be so we tried wavebreak, the back ends of the walls and a few spots in the broadwater, had a few hits but got nothing until dawn.  When dawn arrived and the tide began to run in the walls calmed down a little bit and we worked the edges with minnows and twisties catching 3 tailor between 40 & 45cm, one of which was badly injured which is surprising for this time of year.  Usually you dont see the injured ones until october.

We moved back into the seaway as some birds were gathering and the occasional fish was hitting the surface, plenty of bait holding near the cardinal mark but we got nothing there.  Had a look around and found some tailor feeding on surface occasionally in the western channel in front of runaway bay and we picked up another 7 tailor on squidgie flickbaits there best going about 45cm.  Spotted some birds working in close to south straddie and headed over there, saw some salmon feeding sporadically.  Had some casts at them but didn't get a strike.  One other boat there did hook one though.

That was pretty much it for us, called it a morning at around 9.30.   An ok morning for us but could have been better, would have liked to get a salmon.  Still, I do enjoy fishing when it is rough like that, much more of a challenge than flat calm conditions.  Water temps are still quite high at around 18-19 degrees, lots of bait around.