Seaway and Inshore Report Thursday 8th September 2011 The Weed Returns

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.