Seaway and Broadwater Report Tuesday 22nd January 2013

Into the seaway at 2.30am, wind was initially 5kt SW swell was 1m SE, tide was running in due to top at around 5am.  Started off testing some new lures, a zman 3" pearl Blue Glimmer on a 3/8oz 3/0 headlockz jighgead.  I have avoided zman plastics until now because I hate messing around supergluing plastics to jigheads however the new headlockz jigheads do a damn fine job of keeping them secure and the hooks used are ultra strong without compromising penetration.  Anyway worked the walls for a while but no joy until we managed  a couple of hits around the dropoff north of the north wall.  Kept casting but nothing else happened until a heard a surface hit somewhere in the distance so I decided to change to a 9cm skitter pop.    First cast with that and I had a few hits, there was a bit of phosphorescence in the water and as I got it close to the boat could see the fish swimming underneath it.  Next cast it got smashed and after a short fight up popped a bigeye around 45cm.

Dad changed to a popper too and soon we had double hookups with fish smashing the popper on nearly every cast.  The wind picked up to 15kts from the SE which made things a tad rough and tricky but the fish just kept on biting but all around that 40-45cm size.  Just on dawn the wind eased off and I noticed a massive hit on the popper which didn't connect.  Next cast though we had a double hookup on bigger fish which turned out to be a pair of bigeyes at 52 &57 cm.  The bigger fish stayed biting for another 15 minutes or so then disappeared.

We looked for tailor and pulled a few on the flats on twisties and poppers but they were a bit small around 30cm.  Moved around to the south side and soon had double hookups on tailor on poppers, all around that 35-40cm mark though I did see a much bigger fish give one of the poppers a nudge before following it back to the boat.  That lasted about 20 minutes before they too disappeared.   Tried some plastics on the bottom, had a few hits that didn't connect.  Had a quick look offshore but didn't see anything of interest before heading back in to look for GT's.  No joy on that front either, had to go at 8am, didn't see much bait in the broadwater this time.

Some damn fine popper action there this morning and plenty of fish landed, good to see some bigeyes above 50cm for a change.. geez they make a big hole in the water when they go for a popper.. awesome.  The zman's remain unproven at this stage but will do more testing on future trips.