Seaway Report Saturday 1st January 2011

Conditions

• Wind: SSE  10-15  knots
• Preceeding 3 Days Wind : SSE 10-15 knots
• Swell: 1.m SE Swell
• Water Clarity 0.5-1m
• Tide : BOM: Low tide at 12.30 pm, High tide at 06.02am  ( 0.28-1.54)
• Time Fished: 04.00am to 06.30am
• Moon Phase: 3 days before new moon.
• Water Temp 24.4-24.9 Degrees C

Notes

Rain Periods, Heavy Overcast. Strong Winds.  Difficult fishing conditions.

Report

Headed straight into the seaway to be greeted by challenging conditions.  They were ideal for wash fishing along the north wall edge though so I started off with a 14cm Saltiga Dorado Slider stick Bait and started working the edges.  Wasn't long before a decent tailor around 50cm hit it and after a short tussle and a pic he was back in the water.  Tried that for a while longer before switching to a Megabass Vision 110 and soon hooked up on some bigeye trevally, managed about 5 of those ranging from 40-50cm before they went off the bite.  Switched to a twistie and managed 1 dart at around 30cm.  Switched to a 65gram Raider and started working along the face and soon hooked one more bigeye at 48cm.  That was it though, messed around for a bit before giving it away for the morning.

Not a bad start to the year but nothing too exciting.  Need better conditions to be able to fish the tips of the walls where the bigger fish lurk.

Looking forward into 2011

So what can we look forward to in 2011?  Well alot depends on the weather.. more cyclones are forecast, that means more strong winds, more rain and more floods.  The Gold Coast has got off lightly so far with only 2 mild flood events, which have only taken a couple of weeks to clear, that can change at any time.

From now until late may is pelagic season, its been a good mackerel season so far so hopefully that should continue.  Tuna have been around but not in any numbers, schools have been found all the way from south straddie to palm beach reef but all schools have either rejected offerings or been impossible to get a cast into.  We should start to see some striped tuna and yellowfin tuna in late January/early feb with the bulk of the mack tuna schools showing up in mid february and staying with us until late May.  The full moon in March usually provides some excellent tuna fishing just off the mouth of the seaway, as long as the weather allows you to get out there.

As for the seaway itself, Jewies will still be around at the top of the tide changes on plastics.  Bigeye Trevally will stick around until about the end of January then start to fade out though the smaller ones will stick around.  Giant Trevally usually show up in numbers as the Bigeyes move off, they usually stick around until July/August but can be difficult to catch regularly.

Tailor should be around all year but will stop surface feeding as the water gets colder, the bigger fish will be caught on poppers and shallow running minnows from now until about May, when the smaller fish take over.

Tarpon are still a mystery fish, I caught alot in winter last year but that was due to the good conditions we had, lots of flat calm seas enabled me to fish where I had not fished for them before.  None have been captured in summer so far but the conditions have been challenging to say the least.  2011 will hopefully add a few more behavioural patterns to my knowledge of seaway Tarpon.

Yellowtail Kings can show up at any time, they don't seem to have a preferred time of year but they do seem to prefer cleaner water.