Seaway Report Friday 13th May

Conditions

• Wind: SW  5-10 knots
• Preceeding 3 Days Wind : W-NW 5-25 knots
• Swell: 0.5 m SSE Swell
• Water Clarity 1-1.5.0m
• Tide : BOM: Low tide at 10.32 am, High tide at 04.07am  ( 0.17-1.44)
• Time Fished: 01.00am to 08.30am
• Moon Phase: 4 days before the full moon.
• Barometer 1013.4-1015.6
• Water Temp 22.3-22.9 Degrees C

Notes

Sunny, lots of hardyheads in the broadwater.  Small swell, scattered schools of tuna offshore but very flighty.

Report

Started off by catching a few livies, we ended up with 1 pike plus some herring and hardyheads.  Once that was done we headed into the seaway and had a look around, the usual spots were barren so we looked at a couple of new areas.  In one of these spots we found some Tarpon that were hungry.  I landed one that went 53cm then we proceeded to lose the next 15 or so fish for a variety of reasons.  They were really really acrobatic this time with the 60cm + fish getting well over a metre in the air, one fish even jumped right over the front of the boat from one side to the other, awesome but frustrating.  Many were lost in the final stages of the fight as they jumped right next to the boat.  Jigheads were bent and straightened(3/0 Heavy), snap clips were mangled(but still held together) and 30lb traces were worn through.  Easily some of the most brutal tarpon fishing I've ever experienced.  Interesting behaviour today too with many fish just nudging the lures and holding them tentatively rather than smashing them hard.  I landed two more at 64cm and 62cm before the tide slowed so only 3 fish landed for over 20 hookups.  I was trying some new colours in the ecogear grass minnows, while all colours got fish, Albino Kisu (pearl blue silver)was the standout colour for the morning.

Once the tide slowed we switched to livies, I used the pike while dad used herring.  Dad dropped a fish straight up and I had 2 runs which failed to hookup, probably jewies going by the teeth marks in the bait.  I put the now very sad looking pike back down and he got swallowed by something with alot of weight that took off in a big run, unfortunately the line went limp after about 100m.  I wound in and found the wire had been bitten through, big shark probably.  We had no more interest after that so we switched to lures as the sky lightened.  Lures yielded nothing so we headed offshore to look for tuna and get some more livies.  Tuna were scattered and impossible to get close to but we did get some yellowtail for livies.  We headed back to the seaway and did a few drifts, did hook one fish but lost it halfway up.

We moved into the broadwater as I wanted to have a look around, found some big schools of hardyheads(they'll be useful later on) but not much else. Called it a day at 8.30am.

Only 3 fish landed for the morning, we did hook alot more but for one reason or another they all got away, but that's fishing for you. The tides are favouring the weekend fishos at the moment, with the full moon on tuesday and the top of the tide just after dawn on sat/sun, expect the seaway to fish well this weekend.