Wavebreak Island is an artificial island formed to protect the broadwater from large easterly swells that enter the seaway.  It has 2 rock walls at the northern and southern ends and a flats area with seagrass beds in the middle.  It forms the western side of the seaway zone and yields plenty of fish for those willing to put in the effort.

The North Wall & The Canyon

The north wall of wavebreak island is probably the best fishing spot that wavebreak has to offer, depths range from around 3 metres at the base of the wall to around 13 metres in the canyon.  The canyon is a dropoff zone that starts level with the eastern most point of the north rock wall and stretches eastwards for about 100 metres.  This zone sometimes holds some large numbers of fish especially Bigeye and Giant trevally, Yellowtail Kingfish, Queenfish, big Flathead and Tailor.  The bottom is comprised of sand with a couple of small rocks up closer to the wall.

On a run in tide an eddy and strong current line forms close to the rock wall heading north. This is an ideal place to cast a popper or metal and work the edge of the current line, usually fish holding here will grab it straight away.  Hopping a plastic over the dropoff works as well but dont get too close to the rocks or you wont get it back.  You can also work a plastic or a vib along the northern side of the wall as it it quite often yeilds surprising catches such as Bluefin Trevally, Diamond Trevally or Mangrove Jacks.  On a runout tide the current line is less evident and it heads south from the tip but still worth a working over with plastics or vibs.

Surface action can happen around the wall at any time so keep a lookout for any bustups.  During the summer months the frogmouth pilchards quite often hold in the area between the tip of the wall and the eastern beach.

The Flats

The flats make up the area between the 2 walls, mainly just sand with a small channel that goes abouth half way down and includes a weedbed.  This weedbed quite often has flathead in the vicinity.  During early morning or late afternoon this is also a good spot for surface feeding by Tailor, Bigeye Trevally, Queenfish and Yellowtail Kingfish.  Keep an eye out for any bird action or bustups.  At night baitfish hold on the flats and is a good location for popper fishing mainly for Tailor and Bigeye Trevally.

The South Wall

The south wall is not quite as good a fishing spot as the other 2 locations mentioned above but it can still yield a few good fish mainly Flathead , and Bigeye Trevally.  The lack of depth in this location is the reason that it doesn't attract more fish but its still worth a look if no other locations are holding fish. Plastics are the main tool for this area due to the lack of well defined eddies and current lines.

The water is looking very good now during the top half of the tide with visibility around 2-3 metres which is almost perfect.  Still a bit dirty in the canals and during the bottom half of the tide but improving daily.  These pics were taken at 10am this morning, official top of the tide was 10.44, actual would have been around 11.30am.  Now all we need is the baitfish and the fun will begin.  No sign of any baitfish there today.

No serious weather forecast for the next week,  so it should continue to improve.  Early morning run out tides this week, next weeks tides are better.

Conditions

• Wind: SW 5-10  knots
• Swell: 0.5 m SE Swell
• Water Clarity 0.5-2m
• Tide : BOM: Low tide at 01.08am, High tide at 7.36am  ( 0.11-0.23) Actual top of tide 8.50am
• Time Fished: 03.30am to 08.30am
• Moon Phase: 1 Days before full moon.
• Temps 12-23 Degrees C

Notes

No weed, alot of suspended sand in the water around the north wall even at the top of the tide.  South wall water clean from half tide up.  Water not so green.  Negligible swell.  Sunny.

Report

Moved into the seaway for dawn, started off with vibs and metals but no takers.  Changed to shallow divers (megabass vision 110) and pulled 2 smallish tailor but nothing else.  Tried plastics on the bottom as well but no takers.  I noticed livebaiters also struggled to get fish.  Moved around a bit looking for fish but saw none.  Decided to try some dropshotting the edges and moved over to the south wall.  One cast into the edge got slammed by a reasonable fish which gave me quite a bit of a workout on 6lb, turned out to be a feisty yellowtail king at around 55cm.  He was followed up by half a dozen of his mates some slightly bigger than him.   Once I had put him back, I moved back into position and cast again and hooked up immediately, the fight was odd but it had alot of weight behind it, wasn't long before a very grumpy turtle popped up to the surface with the hook stuck on his shell, I removed the hook and sent him on his way.  The tide was slowing by now so I moved back to the north wall and sent the dropshot rig down hoping for a jewie.  That didn't take long and after a very vigorous fight a 70cm Jewie popped up to the surface and went into the net.  He was followed by another 63cm specimen shortly after.  Changed to a standard jighead rig then proceeded to drop the next 2 fish.  Changed back to the dropshot rig and landed 1 tailor at 42cm and 1 more jewie at 65cm.  By this time the current had stopped and so did the bites so I called it a day at 9am.

Conditions

• Wind: S 5-15  knots
• Swell: 0.5 m SSE Swell
• Water Clarity 0.5-2m
• Tide : Low tide at 00.10am, High tide at 6.29am  ( 0.11-0.23) Actual top of tide 7.40am
• Time Fished: 03.30am to 08.30am
• Moon Phase: 3 Days before full moon.
• Temps 14-18 Degrees C

Notes

No weed, cold green water at the top of the tide but relatively clear, fishable from half tide up to the top.  Negligible swell.  Occasional showers.

Report

Launched at 3.30am and moved into the seaway, searched around for some tarpon but none were around so we fished a number of spots with vibs and poppers.  Just on first light I hooked a small jew of around 60cm on a 20gram Threadybuster, that fish grabbed it on the drop and actually gave a decent fight considering it size.  We fished on but had no more hits, we tried poppers, minnows deep and shallow, slugs, bucktail jigs and more vibs but just could not tempt any more fish anywhere.  It wasn't until the last half hour of run-in that things changed. We started fishing plastics on the bottom as the tide slowed and was soon into a hot bite of Jewfish and flathead.  We landed 7 jewfish over the next hour ranging from 55cm to 69cm and 4 flathead from 30cm up to 68cm including 2 double hookups.  All fish caught on 7inch white Jerkshads though we did try a couple of other plastics.  As soon as the tide started to runout the bite stopped and we called it a day.  The cold green water was the deciding factor today, the absence of tailor and trevally was typical of that type of water.   Lets hope the warm blue water returns soon.

More coming soon

As predicted the swell has dropped right off to less than a metre, the water quality is still very poor but it wont take long before it cleans up as long as we dont have any more significant rain and the swell remains small.  Photos from today at the top of the tide showed the clean water just offshore though the water around the north wall is still quite dirty, not quite enough flow to clean it up.  The water around the south wall is cleaner but visibility is still less than a metre at the top of the tide.  Visibility at any other stage of the tides is less than half a metre. No more significant rain is forecast for the next week so hopefully that should give it time to clean up.

On the plus side I did see some birds diving on bait today, could be a few schools of froggies have made thier way in despite the dirty water.

Looks like we are in for some rain over the next few days so I thought I'd track it a bit on here.  The seaway is already dirty and any more significant rain will wipe out any chance we have of decent fishing for some time.  All amounts are for the 24hours preceeding the date.  Recorded rain at the seaway only.

• 9th October - 9am 41.1mm
• 10th October - 9am 24.2mm  Wind Gusts up to 41knots! (76kph)
• 11th October - 9am 79mm!
• 12th October - 9am 2.6mm

Looks like the rain has finished for now but the seaway is a mess with dirty brown water. Over 200mm fell in the hinterland areas of the gold coast and most of it flows out the seaway.  It will take weeks to clear, but depends on whether we get any more rain.  Swells were recorded up to 8 metres in size but its going to drop pretty quickly and be under a metre by next monday.  Looks like more rain forecast for Thursday/Friday lets hope its only showers.

A combined report this time because both days yielded few fish due to dirty water runoff.  I thought the jewies would be active but despite a bit of plastic work on the bottom, didn't even manage a hit down there.

Tuesday 5th October

Conditions

• Wind: SW 5-10  knots
• Swell: 2.5 m SE Swell
• Water Clarity 0.1-1m
• Tide : Low tide at 011.42am, High tide at 5.57am  (1.22 – 0.05)
• Time Fished: 03.30am to 07.30am
• Moon Phase: 3 Days before new moon.
• Temps 21-24 Degrees C

Notes

Tons of Cornflake weed around the north wall, dirty water runoff, visibility ranging from 10cm to 1m at the top of the tide.  Large dangerous swell.

Report

Fished everywhere in the seaway with most techniques but the high level of weed and dirty water made it difficult, wasn't until the top of the tide when I managed 2 tailor and 1 bigeye trevally, usual small size fish.  All fish caught around the eastern most point of the north wall.

Thursday 7th October

Conditions

• Wind: SW 5-10  knots
• Swell: 1-2 m SE Swell
• Water Clarity 0.5-1m
• Tide : Low tide at 01.29am, High tide at 7.31am  (1.49 – -0.07)
• Time Fished: 03.30am to 07.30am
• Moon Phase: 1 Day before new moon.
• Temps 24-27 Degrees C

Notes

Cornflake weed still around the north wall but starting to thin out, dirty water runoff, visibility ranging from 50cm to 1m at the top of the tide.

Report

Pretty much a carbon copy of Tuesdays effort, no fish until the top of the tide with 2 tailor and 1 bigeye landed, a couple of other fish lost.  Looked offshore for pelagics, found some decent (3-4kg) tuna at around the 80ft mark east of the seaway but too flighty to get a cast into.  Looked from the seaway south to mermaid reef but saw no others.

Fished the seaway this morning, more detailed report later.  Currently the seaway is suffering a double whammy of dirty runoff water from sundays 118mm of rain plus a cornflake weed invasion courtesy of the large swell we had over the weekend.  Visibility is down to half a metre due to dirty runoff and suspended sand and thats only during the last hour of the run-in, the rest of the run in tide visibility is down to 10cm or so.  The huge amount of cornflake weed around the north wall makes it impossible to fish with minnows,vibs or metals except for the last half hour of the run in and first half hour of the run out.  The South wall is not affected by cornflake weed at this time, but was too dangerous to fish the end of the wall this morning..   The swell was around 2.5m SE this morning but was falling quite quickly, quite safe to fish around the front of the north wall as long as you don't do anything stupid.  Given the conditions, fishing was tough with only a couple of small bigeyes and tailor caught.

The water should clean up quite quickly if we don't have any more significant rainfalls in the near future, hopefully the cornflake weed will bugger off as well.

We are currently in a LaNina weather system, read the article below for what this means to us here in SE QLD.  What this means for the seaway is more chance of flooding especially if we get a cyclone or two, and more chance that it will wipe out the entire summer surface season which should start any day now. Not Good.

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Update: 4th October

The Seaway had 118mm of rain overnight, dangerously close to flood territory, the webcam is down so I'm not sure if it has affected it or not.  I'll know by tomorrow morning though as I will be out there fishing.

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From this article at goldcoast.com.au

A total of 94.2mm fell at the Gold Coast Seaway last month, which is almost double the long-term September average.

This pushed the yearly rainfall total to 1111.2mm - 266mm more above the long-term rainfall average to the same period.

The wet is predicted to continue throughout spring and summer as two weather phenomenons combine for the first time in 35 years.

Weather Channel meteorologist Dick Whitaker said the La Nina in the Pacific Ocean and Indian Ocean Diapole had effectively created a double rainfall whammy.

The last time the events occurred simultaneously in 1974, the Gold Coast recorded its highest yearly rainfall of 2468mm.

''It is unusual ... the last time it happened back in 74-75 we had Cyclone Wanda which brought very heavy flooding to the Brisbane areas,'' said Mr Whitaker.

Mr Whitaker here was a `high probability of above average rainfall' for the remainder of the year.

But Mr Whitaker said while the La Nina may weaken in the early part of next year, it was unpredictable.

''When it weakens it will be like turning off a tap, or it could linger.''

Mr Whitaker said an active cyclone season was likely during the La Nina period.

The Bureau of Meteorology will release its seasonal outlook on Monday, which is predicted to forecast more tropical cyclones forming off the Queensland coast.

Humpback Whale Close inshore Gold Coast

What happens when you don't respect the seaway, it chews you up and throws your boat up on the rocks.

The set built on the south wall for the movie Triangle