Hi Craig,

Am biting the bullet and heading out of the seaway on Wednesday. I would appreciate it if you have any GPS marks on areas to catch livies?

Thanks and cheers

Bob

Now that winter is almost gone, its time to start looking at what changes spring brings to the seaway and broadwater areas.  Water temperatures have been quite high over winter with nothing less than 18 degrees and spring should see those water temps rise quite quickly over 20 degrees.   The latest rain and swell we've had will have dirtied up the seaway and the crystal clear conditions we saw over winter should not return.  Weather will get increasingly erratic with lots more strong southerly winds making the north wall fishable for no more than a few days a week.  The fish should start taking more of an interest in surface presentations and edge fishing with poppers, stickbaits and shallow running minnows should yield some good fish at dawn and dusk.

Fishwise, Bigeye trevally should start to show up in bigger numbers and sizes with 60cm fish becoming more prevalent as we head towards summer.  Poppers and minnows around the walls and slugs near the pipeline on early morning run in tides.  Vibs dropped down deep around current lines should also pick a few good specimens.  Surface feeding schools can show up at anywhere at any time  but generally only during run in tides.  Giant Trevally should taper off this month and only be sporadically caught between now and January.

Tailor numbers should increase with the biggest fish showing around the north wall in October, November and December.  Poppers, Stickbaits, big minnows and live pike will catch the bigger fish, slugs will catch plenty of the smaller fish, look for surface feeding anywhere in the seaway, the broadwater or just off the shore break of south straddie.

Tarpon, I'm not sure about.  September was the last month I caught them in last year so its possible they move up the rivers as the water temps increase.  I'll still be looking for them this month so it will be interesting to see if they are still around.  Australian Salmon have been a surprise catch this year with large schools showing up, though most people have only caught one or two a trip.  I have seen them in the seaway in previous years until mid October so they may stick around for a bit longer.

Yellowtail kings should show up in increasing numbers between now and the start of summer though they can show up anywhere at anytime.  The pipeline is a given but getting one up from the pipeline is almost impossible, there should be some hanging around the north and south walls which are easier to land.  Stickbaits and livies work well for the larger fish, twisties and plastics work fine for smaller fish feeding on surface.

Mulloway should still be around and will be able to be caught at the tide changes with vibs, plastics and livies.  Flathead should show up briefly as the spawn in the seaway in large numbers in september, plastics on the bottom are best for these fish.

Offshore, Mack Tuna numbers should increase, we may see a run of bonito and frigate mackerel as well.  Mackerel should show up towards the end of spring but won't really get going until we are into summer.

Towards the end of spring we should see large schools of frogmouth pilchards enter the seaway and broadwater, this is the cue for some top quality surface action with trevally, tailor, queenfish and kingfish all busting into big schools of bait, kee an eye out for this as it can happen at any time.

Been a bit sick  and the last trip wasn't all that good but in the interests of showing that I don't always have good trips here is last thursdays report.

On the water at 3.30am, moved into the seaway to look for Tarpon, spent the next couple of hours casting various areas for not even a touch.  Conditions were ideal with one exception, the phosphorescence level was quite high.. the worst I've seen it this year in fact so that could have been a factor.  Anyway just on dawn we fished around the north wall with minnows and pulled a couple of bigeye trevs around 35cm.  Nothing else there so we moved on to look for salmon while the tide was still running in.  Saw nothing in all the spots we looked at except for some fussy queenfish in the main channel near seaworld and ended up back at the seaway just as the tide started to run out.  The fish were stacked over the pipeline and we sent down a range of lures, managed a few hits with no hookups on plastics but nothing else.  One of the fly guys pulled a golden trevally around 40cm.  Gave up there after and hour or so can called it a day at around 9am, there were a few salmon sporadically feeding around the grand ramp but not frequently enough to get a cast in.

So that was it a pretty poor effort with only 2 fish landed for the day.  What was interesting was the total lack of fish on the sounder in the seaway while it was still dark.  Its possible that the fish moved further into the broadwater away from the phosphorescence and returned once the sun came up.

I FISHED THE BROADWATER TODAY NEAR WAVEBREAK AND CAUGHT SEVEN FLATHEAD BETWEEN 45CM AND 60CM ON TILSTAN MINNOWS. I KEPT TWO FOR A FEED REALEASED THE REST AND CAUGHT AND RELEASED MANY MORE UNDERSIZED ONES . I ONLY CAUGHT THEM ON THE RUN OUT  AND TROLLING AT 3KNOTS IN FOUR FOOT OF WATER. THE WIND WAS SW/SE  5 TO 10 KNOTS  . ROB T

Went for a fish this morning, started off okay with 20 or so tailor and bigeye trevs on poppers and plastics in the broadwater, nothing huge but fun nonetheless.

Moved into the seaway at around 4am to see if could get a tarpon or two.  Standard search pattern, cast out let it sink wind it back.  Did that for an hour or so with only a few half hearted hits to show for it.  Then on one cast halfway back to the boat, I feel a thud and set the hook.  Nothing but dead weight, hmmm maybe stuck on a rock, jiggle it a bit, still stuck, then I give it a damn good reef to try and bust off.... at that instant whatever it was figures out he's hooked and takes off like a rocket parallel to the rock wall heading out to sea.  I've never seen a spool lose line so fast, and within about 15 seconds I was starting the engine trying to chase him.   Once clear of the seaway the fish started to arc north around the front of the wall while I'm still about 50m inside the seaway trying to steer the boat and holding the rod up high to try and clear the rocks at the end.  By this time the fish had over 100m of braid out and was still peeling line off the reel without slowing.   Then the inevitable happened, the line touched a bit of rock and it was all over leaving me with only half the line I started with.  Never stood a chance really, too big too fast for 6lb braid.  Fun though and the highlight of the day.  Its fish like that that keep me coming back to the seaway.

By this time the sun was just about to come up so I spent some time deadsticking 3" gulp minnows around the dropoff and pulled a nice GT around 55cm and lost a couple of others.

Unfortunately at around 6am my motor began having problems, coughing and stalling so I had to go back to the ramp and call it quits early at 6.30am.  Dirty fuel and gummed up spark plugs was the problem and a big thanks to the guys at Marine Tune at Burleigh for having a look at the motor straight away and fixing the problem.

Bit of a test fish on Monday night.  I wanted to see if I could catch a Tarpon in the evening rather than early morning.  Wade came along as he was keen to land his first Tarpon.  Never having fished for them in the evening before I wasn't sure how their behaviour would be affected or even if I could find them and they would be eating.
It took alot of casts before Wade finally hooked one on a 65mm squidgy slick rig, unfortunately he lost that fish.  Alot more casting followed and Wade finally hooked and landed a Tarpon around the high 50's which hit the plastic on the drop.  Unfortunately that was it, we cast and moved around for the next hour or so and didn't get another hit.  I had a few hits during the night but no hookups so I ended up with a big fat zero.  We fished from 6.30 til about 10.30.

So an interesting night, the conditions were just about perfect if a little bumpy so I don't know why they were so subdued.  Just another piece of the puzzle.