Seaway Report Wednesday 13th April

Conditions

• Wind: SW  5-10 knots
• Preceeding 3 Days Wind : NW-NE 5-15 knots
• Swell: 0.5 m E Swell
• Water Clarity 1.5-8.0m
• Tide : BOM: Low tide at 10.24 am, High tide at 04.44am  ( 0.31-1.51)
• Time Fished: 12.30am to 09.00am
• Moon Phase: 5 days before full moon.
• Barometer 1016.4-1017.4
• Water Temp 24.2-24.9 Degrees C

Notes

Mainly sunny with occasional clouds. Light winds and very clear water, could see the bottom in 8 metres of water near the top of the tide. Lots of activity before dawn but no  fish interested once the sun was up.

Report

Moved into the seaway at 12.30am,  I went out early today because the conditions were ideal for Tarpon and I had a few other places I wanted to look at while the swell was down and conditions were good.  First cast I got bumped which was promising, second cast I hooked up on a good Tarpon which did an excellent aerial display and actually stayed connected.  That fish went 60cm on the dot.  The next 20 casts yielded nothing so I moved on to the next spot.

The sounder showed fish stacked from top to bottom and first cast had me hooked up on a bigeye trev.  It was pretty much a fish a cast for the half hour with bigeye trevs taking anything, I used plastics, poppers, minnows and metals and they were all eaten.  Interestingly enough there was a bit of phosphorescence at this spot, which usually means fish aren't interested but it didn't bother them at all today.  You could see the phosphor trails of other fish as they chased the hooked fish around.. very cool.  About 30 minutes after I started catching fish I noticed one almighty big phosphor trail chasing my hooked fish in which looked suspiciously like a big shark, which in fact it was, a whaler of about 2 metres long had taken an interest in my hooked fish.  He hit the boat once after chasing a hooked fish right up to the boat, after that I decided to go back to my Tarpon spot and see if any other fish were around.

First cast back at the spot and I hooked another bigeye of around 40cm.   Next cast I hooked a tarpon which promptly jumped off.  Over the next two hours I hooked 13 more Tarpon losing 5 and landing 8 from 54cm up to 63cm.  Once the tide started to slow at 4am they went off the bite so I moved  back to where the bigeyes were and continued to catch small bigeyes until the first ray of dawn when they promptly disappeared, thankfully the shark did not return(although I may have a go at him at a later date).

I lurefished around the north wall from first light until sunup for zip(odd considering the water quality was good) then moved offshore to get some livies.  I soon had a nice mix of pike, slimies and yellowtail so I returned to the seaway to livebait.  Unfortunately for whatever reason the fish had lockjaw, they weren't interested, I tried the north wall, the south wall and the pipeline and didn't lose a bait.  Just goes to show there's no such thing as a sure thing when it comes to fishing.  Gave it away at 9am.

So another fishing day completed, and a good example of why you should keep your options open and not rely on a single strategy to get fish.  Livies, usually a near guarantee of a few fish failed to get a single one.  Why that is I don't know, just one of the many mysteries of fishing.