Another late night topwater action on a ferry wharf

[devoker]

I couldn't feel sleepy last night, so I decided to hit a wharf in the harbour around midnight. The water looked like a lake when I was there. I decided to soft plastics minnow a try to start. After about 6-7 cast I hooked a decent tailor (felt very heavy on my light outfit, probably legal), it pulled some decent drag. I was trying to move it along the pillars so I could land it without breaking the rod, then it pulled the hook right next to the surface.Disappointed, but I could hear other tailor slashing near the surface where light hit the surface when I turned around through the shore. I kept casting towards to the shore kept doing the sharp darting movements in the mid-top water columns. I kept getting hits but they were probably too small and they were hitting the tail of the plastic. I decided to try some topwater lures. First, started with walking dog aggressively, but I got no hits. Then, I switched to shallow/mid diving crankbaits, but also no fish was interested even though I could hear them feeding near the surface. After a while they were gone, instead I could see 3-4 squids cruising near the surface. Quickly I switched to 2.5 squid jig and after a couple casts I could hook one. However, this one also dropped hook just before I was about to lift the rod and inked away. I got 2-3 more hits Which I could see them hitting the lure but none could properly hook. The squid also disappeared quickly and I didn't want to waste much time as my lure was sinking too slowly while the water was quite deep.

Finally, tailor were back again. This time I decided to pull the big gun (actually not very big but very effective), the bent minnow and after 2-3 cast I landed the first tailor. I kept casting all around the pillars usually horizontal to the structure and in about 1-2 hours I was able to land 5 of them, all were small actually, around 15-20 cm probably didn't bother measureing and taking photos. Finally I decided to give the suspending jerkbaits a go, they were a bit hesitant at first, but I was able to get some hits and landed another small one too. I reckon a deeper diving jerkbait might have caught a couple more as mine was diving less than a metre and it was more suited to the shallows. Bent minnow was very effective but it wasn't very easy to make it dive while I was standing on the platform a few metres higher above the water, or maybe I need to work on my technique a little bit more.

Edited November 21 by devoker

[Pickles]

A comprehensive review of your outing and interesting reading - thanks for sharing @devoker. Tailor are great fun on light gear, but like any fish it can be challenging “matching the hatch” with a lure similar to their prey.

[juicy233]

 Good stuff hooking some late night tailor. Tailor are fun to throw lures at at night, try a metal next time, those small choppers are suckers for 10g and even 20g metals