St Leonard's Report 23/01/2020

[Andrews]

Hey Everyone,

January is nearly done and dusted and as the tourists are quieting down the fishing is perking up.
Squid are remaining active during the rising and setting sun while smaller numbers are being caught during the day. The heavy rains have pushed the squid into deeper water as they dislike the brackish run-off. The recent strong Northerly winds have been productive for pinkies despite the cooler water temperature and Whiting are healthy in numbers but require burley to pull into the pier.

Saturday 18/01/2020, sunny evening with a moderate ESE and a low, high clarity rising tide.
Focused on calamari and they appeared in the evening in good numbers. Fished across the current produced by the pier breakwater with a slow relaxed retrieval. This allowed the current to push the jig across the weed beds and the upwards darting movement caught plenty of interest. Landed three squid, the largest being around 32cm with a healthy mix of a medium and smaller size. The large one became dinner and bait, while the others were given to some of the young families along the pier. Everyone ended up with at least one or two squid each. Small pinkies were active along the breakwater of the pier and they kicked up with a couple 1kg+ ones being landed.

Monday 20/01/2020, rainy evening with strong to gale S winds with a low, low clear tide.
You’d think I was mad going off a pier during the strong wet weather, but last time it rained like this the squid went wild. They matched that behaviour and were sitting mid water and striking the minute the jig hit the water. After catching eight within 10 minutes they calmed, I baited up my whiting rig with fresh squid and threw out my burley bucket/pot. The pot sits at the bottom and releases a slow release homemade mix. They came running in and one after the other and they hooked up beautifully. I ended the evening with 8 squid, 10 kgw.

Tuesday 21/01/2020, sunny evening with a light S wind and a high clarity drop/rising tide.
The brackish water pushed the squid away, not a single squid caught on the pier in 4 hours. After failing the hunt of bait, I moved to soft plastics which the undersize salmon enjoyed. Ended the evening empty handed.

Hopefully the brackish water still doesn’t have them pushed away from the pier, I’ll find out tomorrow. Paternoster works best in my opinion for the whiting, with the healthy mid of sand and weed patches a running rig is less successful. Fresh squid is working best, while the pippies are missing the mark.

Goodluck with the fishing everyone, enjoy a photo of Saturdays squids.

[e.welch]

sounds like a good sesh mate you seem to know this place like the back of your hand

[Fishbref]

Nice writeup!

[Sinsemilla]

Great write up mate, Cheers!

Anth

[Redhunter]

They'll be renaming St Leonards pier "Andrews pier" the way you're going!
Great report, well done.

[wem21]

What's in your burley?

[StarrangerAU]

Top write up, and some good results for you out of St Leonards.

I really ought to improve my game with catching squid for bait, clearly it worth the effort if the squid are on the take.

[Seniorfisho]

Thats a good pier session, well done

[Pedro]

Thanks for your report. I appreciate the effort made and info you’ve provided.

[purple5ive]

well done, Great report. thanks for sharing