Broadwater and Seaway Report Thursday 4th August 2011

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.