Inshore tuna on fly

[cy_taylor1]

Hello,

Recently I fly fished inshore near Shute Harbour in the Whitsundays. We targeted schooling mack and northern bluefin tuna with 8/9 weights using small white/flashy microbait flies. We also tried larger flies with no success. The tuna in the harbour were crashing through these small bait with white water everywhere! Along with these tuna schools were an unidentified species of mackeral also chasing along. The action lasted all day, yet was firing from 11:30 am - 3:00 pm.

Does anybody know what these microbait species are?
Also, why do these microbait come in to inshore waters?

Thanks
Cy Taylor
Whitsundays QLD

[cy_taylor1]

Microbait and small white fly imitation (approx. 35mm - 40mm in length)

[jimbolikes_barra]

got this tuna just out of kingfisher bay (fraser island) they were also eating very small bait fish (two inches if they are lucky) this just of the jetty there but got more out on the boat later that afternoon.

[Scott15]

nice fish, looks like a small frog mouth pilchard

[Dr_Shane_Griffiths]

Cy,

I wouldn't exactly call that "microbait", but it's Engraulis australis or an Australian Anchovy. Real microbait is when all you can see is two tiny black dots on a translucent mini piece of spagetti about an inch long. Mac tuna just love them and longtail tuna can be extremely difficult to catch when they're honed in on that prey.

Cheers

Shane.

[catchy_fishy]

CY

I have had experience of a slightly darker anchovy - not sure of the Latin name in Mozambique, with the same effect on Kawa Kawa (East Coast Little Tuna). We also used a very similar fly to catch them on, but compared to your pic I would have to say that we had even more success with fewer strands. It seemed the worse for wear the fly got, after successive "hits" the better it became for hookups

CF