Into the seaway at around 2am, early because I wanted to fish the first of the run in tide around 3am.  The first hour was slow with nothing but as the tide turned things improved.  Dad was first up with a fish following and hitting the lure all the way back to the boat, he hooked up with the lure only a couple of meters away from the boat and the fish blasted away at top speed.. unfortunately it beelined right back to the rock wall 30m away and busted him off in about 10 seconds.  Not much you can do about that, the gear we are using(6-8lb) is not strong enough to stop any decent fish with a rock fetish. I was next with a bigeye trev around 50cm, then dad got a bigger one at around 55cm.  Dad then scored a good Tarpon at 62cm, the biggest I've seen so far this year.  Had a few more hits but that was it.

At dawn we fished around the north wall for zip and spent some time in the broadwater looking for surface feeders but it was pretty quiet didn't see 1 bustup.  We moved offshore and went down to the scottish prince, picked up plenty of tailor and bonito around the 30-40cm mark.  Moved out to the bait reefs picked up some more bonito then moved north and found some big schools of small mack tuna (30-50cm)and pulled about 20 of them before calling it a day.  Alot of boats fishing the seaway on the way back but I didn't see any catches.

Water quality was very good with 5m+ vis at half tide up, bottom of the tide still looked a bit dirty though.  Water temps falling with a bit of variation, around 20-23 degrees. Still cant seem to find any numbers with the tarpon, they seem to be playing hard to get this year.

Fished for Gt's between 9.30 and 12 both thursday and friday.  I wanted to test a new rig on the GT's as I haven't been impressed with the strike rate of slugs, you still catch them but not often enough for my liking and once the sun gets up towards the middle of the day they tend to ignore them.  It's called a split shot rig and uses a fisharrow flash j 3" plastic in glow silver hooked once through the nose with a 2/0 Gamakatsu dropshot hook.  1.5m  20lb leader straight through to the hook.  A 4 gram split shot is fastened 30cm  from the hook to give casting weight.  Basically once cast out the plastic will sit and swim horizontally and all you have to do is get it into the bustup, let it sink for a couple of seconds then bring in the slack, let it sit if no strike within 5 seconds give it a flick or two.  They are usually on it instantly though, fish are always hooked in the side of the mouth..   We hooked alot more fish on Thursday because of it but alot of fish were lost for various reasons. We landed 3 out of 7 hookups.  Friday was a different ballgame with only 3 bustups within the timeframe I had to fish, I hooked one fish out of each of the bustups I got to in time, the other one I was about 5 seconds too late. Only landed one GT though at 64cm, lost another one thanks to a bustoff around a beacon plus I got a 40cm tailor on the same rig.

Friday pics

Headed out Saturday morning at about 5am. Did a few drifts along north wall with plastics and slugs for nothing. Back into the broadwater where we spotted Craig amongst the 1st bust up. 2nd cast hooked onto a 46cm GT. That was pretty much it for the surface action besides 1 more bust up. Headed out to the inshore reefs and did a few drifts for nothing as well. Quite lumpy outside.

Went out Sunday morning at about 5.45am. Perfect conditions inside, stayed in the broadwater for about 1hr before deciding to hit the northwall. Did not see 1 bust up at all. Pretty disappointing. Fair few birds and bait but no fish. Left at 8.30 having only caught a small reef fish using a vibe against south stradbroke wall.

Average weekend of fishing but better being out on the water than working.

Went out for a quick fish for a few hours on saturday, into the seaway at around 4am swell was big 2.5m+(again!!), wind was 5kts from the SW. Had some casts around but nothing there.  At dawn had a few casts around the ends on the walls but again nothing.  Moved back into the broadwater to look for GT's and spotted some feeding, a couple of casts had me hooked up and I soon landed 1 Gt around 50cm.  2 other boats had 1 fish each as well.  They went down and I spotted another school further down and headed down.  Unfortunately these fish werent interested and noone else hooked any either.  That was it for the morning, I didn't see any more fish come up.  Had a look around the front of the seaway, and south of wavebreak as well but nothing.

Plenty of bait around still, water clarity was ok considering the rain from the previous weekend.  Dirty around the north wall with alot of suspended sand due to the big swell.  Edge fishing the seaway has proved fruitless the last few times, although thats quite common this time of year as the fish feed either in short bursts on the surface or closer to the bottom.  I wish this big swell would bugger off, it seems like it hasnt been under 2 metres for months now.