Seaway Report 15-16th October 2013

Arrived at the seaway at 3.30am  on Tuesday morning, had a quick fish along the edge and got bitten off once(hairtail) before dawn was upon me.  Tried minnows at first around the north wall got nothing so switched to skitterbaits and landed two tailor around the mid to high 40's and missed a couple of others.  Switched to minnows got nothing then went to the microjigs.  That got me another two tailor around the same size in the Eddy and I dropped another couple as well.  Interestingly I did get two hookups while I was talking to another fisherman with the jig just sitting a metre above the bottom.  The tide slowed and the bites stopped.  Went down to the pipeline and sent down the microjig and it was followed up by a small kingfish but no hits.  Had a look in the Broadwater(plenty of bait), had a quick troll over the canyon and generally messed around for nothing else.

Came back to the North wall around 12.30pm just as the tide started to move in.  There was a fairly well defined dirty water line so I fished around that for a while until the clean water, no hits on plastics or metal so I switched to the skitterbait.  Mutton Birds had begun to gather around the North wall Eddy where I wanted to throw it so it was a case of cast in between them, if it got too close they would grab it. About 5 minutes in a good fish smashed it off the top about 2 metres off the rocks, after a stubborn fight a 58cm Tailor was in the net.  That's getting up towards greenback size(but not quite) and an excellent fish off the surface in the middle of the day.  Tried for a bit longer had one more hit but the mutton birds got too thick and I had to stop fishing surface.  Tried minnows for a while before switching to microjigs.  Hooked 2 more fish but dropped them both.  As the sun began to go down I went for a run into the broadwater again, heaps of bait between Crab and Horseshoe Flats but nothing into it.  Did a quick troll, tried again around the North wall with minnows but got zip Off the water at 7.15pm.

Wednesday morning I took dad out for a dawn session on the water by 3.30am, Tried minnows first(zip) switched to skitters got two hits no hookups around the northern side of the wall, then nothing.  Got distracted by 3 whales that came in the seaway, then tried the South wall(zip) then tried microjigs(zip) then twisties(zip).  Went back around the northern side of the wall once the sun was up, got two 40cm tailor in two casts on the skitter then Dad got 1 solid Tailor around 50cm on a limited edition Skitter Pop 9.  That was it for there, we tried a bunch of other stuff none of which worked. Called it a day at 10.00am

So a tough couple of days, everyone I talked to over those two days was doing it tough, no-one managed any more than a handful of fish, if it wasn't for the tailor I would have caught nothing.  Most of the Tailor are skinny post spawn fish but they are in good condition, I haven't seen any with shark wounds on them yet.  There was no surface feeding anywhere.  Not sure whats going on though the water temperature coming in the seaway had dropped a couple of degrees down to around 19 which may be a factor.  There is plenty of bait hanging in the northern part of the northern channel but no fish into it as yet.  Not much in the seaway itself.  Very hit and miss at the moment though surface fishing for Tailor is yielding some good fish.  Still the occasional small kingfish around the pipe but you need to be the first one to fish it.

The mutton birds are everywhere at the moment and they are quite willing to grab anything, even lures that are hanging over the side of the boat.  They are also sitting in the channels and not moving until you get very close and as a result some are getting hit by boats and killed, try and avoid them if you can.  There is already quite a few dead ones floating in the channels.

A good Tailor on the skitterbait

Another Microjig Tailor

Colour change off the north wall

Mutton birds hanging in the eddy

Tailor on the mat

This tailor took a Rapala Skitter pop 9

Whales in the seaway