Me and mate we start fishing around 1am on Thursday. Moving up and down along the wall trying for big eye and Jew but dint even get a touch all night. As the tide started to change back the swell start to pick up so i switch back to plastic to see if i could get anything to interest. but nothing again without a touch for hr. as i was winding back my soft plastic just near the rock with bit of speed out of nowhere something appear and smash my soft plastic. I could see the lure is being hit from the light of moon. And the line start to peel off from the reel and i called out for mate "I am on" than i apply bit more of drag. The fish refuse to stop and take me straight to the rock .Bit more of rod work than the fish comes out. The big eye trav about 65cm.It is not huge by all mean. But one of the most aggressive strike and fight that I face. Mind-blowing to see the full speed strike about 10m in front of you. After we did get one more hook up but the hook pulled. And all quite again so we move back try another area. Only manage to get one smaller trav on light gear. And we head back home around 5am. We haven’t seen bigger big eye for while only smaller model are common now a days. They have seemed to disappear for around a month.maybe probably feeding in different area. bit of change in weathermight might bring different fish close to shore.
Every September as the water begins to warm the seaway and in particular the north wall becomes infested with slimy weed which makes fishing difficult in some areas and impossible in others. The weed has now arrived. The weed usually sticks around for a month or two though it does vary on a daily basis. Usually the south wall and pipeline are not as affected so its worth remembering that if you find the north wall weeded up. Anyway on with the report.
Moved into the seaway at around 2.30 am checked out a number of locations but weed was a big problem with about half the casts coming back fouled. After an hour of that we gave up and moved down to wavebreak and threw some poppers around looking for some bigeye trevs. We managed a couple around 30cm and dropped a couple of others but they really weren't that interested. We moved around a bit looked at a few other locations but all was quiet.
At dawn we headed back to the seaway, had another fish around the north wall for zip then moved down to the pipeline. We dropped some 1/2 oz gulp minnows down right next to the pipeline and I immediately hooked up on a good fish which tore off about 20m of line before slugging it out around the pipeline, despite my best efforts at trying to get him away from it about a minute later he busted me off. That was it for there we moved offshore to look for Tuna, we covered alot of ground but saw no fish and no birds either. We did stop at the 18 fathom reefs east of the seaway and I did get a squire on a 1/2oz pearl sider but we didn't stay there for long.
That was pretty much it for the day, the weed and a general lack of interest on the part of the fish combined to give a pretty average day out on the water fish wise. Nice conditions though. Water temps around 20.3 degreees.
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Fishing seaway from 5.30, there was no bait at the surface so we dropped some plastics down to the bottom at the tip of the north wall. Before long a school jewy was boated and a few other touches, but no hookups. There was really small bait on the surf side of north wall with something busting up on them. Not too sure because none were landed. The bait was really little and the fish were picky, best bet is salmon because we saw some salmon nearby in the chop of the north wall. We then resorted back to dropping down around the north wall and a few more touches but nothing convincing. We were about 10m from the wall and there was little bust up, maybe chopper tailor or something so i flicked my plastic at it and it sunk down and I saw a huge whitish yellow flash as the line started peeling off the reel straight back towards the bottom. After 15mins on bream gear and drifting right down to the center of the seaway, we borrowed another boats landing net and boated the metre yellowtail. Excellent morning!
Moved into the seaway at 2.30am, I wanted to see if I could find any Tarpon first. First cast I got nudged and Dad hooked up with the fish tossing the plastic on the first jump. That was promising so we continued to cast in the general area but the fish were timid to start with with most casts getting hits and nudges but no hookups although Dad picked up a small jewie around 45cm. After an hour of that we managed to stir them up enough so that they finally started to hit the lures properly and we started hooking some Tarpon. Size was good with the smallest fish going 58cm and the biggest a slab sided fish of 65cm. We landed 7 overall and lost about 15 from jumpoffs which is a pretty good conversion rate.
As dawn arrived they disappeared and we changed tactics, we started off using minnows around the edges of the walls but that yielded nothing so we switched to metals. With one long cast into the shore break on the north wall flats with a 20gram twistie dad hooked a good fish which immediately jumped out of the water showing itself to be a good salmon, after a good tussle it was landed, it went 66cm. We fished around the walls for a bit longer before moving back into the broadwater looking for any surface action. There was none so we ended up back at the seaway and checked out the south wall, while there was a ton of fish on the southern side they weren't eating.
We decided to head north along the shore break of south straddie and look for some tuna. It didn't take long to find schools of 10 or so fish and after a couple of attempts I managed to hook a decent fish on a Gillies 25gm Baitfish which proceeded to take about 150m of line in its first run, a 15 minute battle and I had a 80cm Mack Tuna at the boat. We chased the schools around for a while hooking and losing a few fish before dad hooked another fish, after a good battle he landed a nice fish around 60cm. We chased them around for a bit longer but they were quite difficult to get close to so we gave up and headed back to the broadwater and had another run around looking for birds or fish on surface. We covered alot of ground but saw none so we gave it away at around 9.30am.
A pretty good day overall, but a bit disappointed with the lack of surface action in the broadwater. There is tons of bait holding just outside the surf break on south straddie so it should be a good spot to look for fish when the conditions are calm enough. Water temps were rock steady around 19.9-20 degrees. Should be a great pelagic season with such high water temps already.