The last two weeks has seen a change in fish behaviour, they are less active and spend less time feeding and more time sulking on the bottom. There is also less fish around in general. The reason for this in my opinion is twofold, the drop in water temperature and the clarity of the water on the run in tide. The water temperature has dropped to 18 degrees from the steady 21 degrees we have had over the last couple of months. The water clarity on the run in tides is now around 10 metres which is insane, you can see the bottom around the end of the north wall and on the edge of the canyon, fish in the seaway do not like this at all and will head up the rivers or out to sea in order to find some cover. I know for a fact that most of the tailor have headed further up the broadwater between Crab and Couran Cove so they can hunt in the dirtier water. Most of the bigeyes headed upstream a couple of weeks ago. The GT’s are still around but their behaviour is increasingly erratic.
This is a typical winter weather pattern, westerlies and calm seas means clear water and fussy fish, you are better off fishing around the bottom of the runout tide start of the run in tide or at night when this happens. What we need is a sustained strong SE weather event to add turbidity to the water again, but there is nothing like that in the forecasts.
As much as I’d like to blame the dredging for it, there simply hasn’t been enough dredging to make a difference, if there was the water would be dirty all the time and you wouldn’t be able to see 1 metre down let alone the 10 metres plus we have at the moment.
As for the eels not sure what is happening there, but I have not caught any fish with open sores that weren’t caused by sharks.
