Went for my last gold coast fish for a while on thursday, met up with wade at the ramp and we headed out. On the water at 2.30pm we looked around for a bit and found some tarpon hitting the surface, initially just single fish then groups of fish started busting up.  I hooked up 4 times in a row on grass minnows and lost them all. Wade hooked his first on a big pearl coloured curltail and kept it more out of the water than in and succeeded in landing the first one a nice tarpon of 55cm. He landed the next one too going 58cm . I finally manged to land my first around 55cm.  After that they switched off and we hooked no more until the sun started to set a bit.  They were sitting on the bottom in small groups and Wade hooked one working a qantas transam along the bottom it going 61cm. Wade hooked up another fish but it turned out to be a GT in the mid 50's.




That was it there, we moved on looking in all the holes and had a quick few casts in the seaway but there was nothing until we found some bait in front of a jetty. Here the bait was stacked up metres deep pretty much all along the channel and there were plenty of bigeyes into them with the occasional bustup. We got plenty of bigeyes around 40-45cm trolling and casting blades, minnows and plastics(xr10, grass minnows, transams and a 3/8 oz blade) with a few decent specimens in closer to the jetties going 51cm. They went off the bite at the top of the tide so we moved on, tried a few more jetties and bridges but got nothing else. It was a good afternoon/evening though, and a nice way to finish off.

This is my last report until december, until then you guys fish hard and get a few fish for me.  I won't be around much, but I will check in from time to time.

Into the broadwater at 2am spent some time working the bridges with a megabass edonis minnow, picked up a couple of decent tailor in the low 50's but nothing else.  Poured down rain for an hour at 3am which was fun..... Into the seaway for dawn, tide was at the bottom of the runout, swell was around a metre from the east. Dropped some chartpearl 3" gulp minnows down to the bottom on 1/2oz jigheads and picked up a couple of jewies in the high 50's.  As the sky lightened I switched to a vision 111 and pulled a few tailor and bonito around mid 30's.  Once the tide began to run in I did a cast along the front of the wall and it was smashed hard and the fish instantly got airborne, a salmon at last.  Thankfully the hooks held and after and excellent fight with some good runs I netted a Salmon of 63cm, my first this year.  Another species for the vision 111, I'm loving these lures at the moment.  Nothing else after that I switched to a twistie and caught a few more small tailor and bonito.  Had a look around the pipe(nothing) and in the broadwater(only bonito) then had a quick look offshore(lots of dolphins).  Had one more fish in the broadwater and hooked a decent Tarpon but lost it at the side of the boat.




That was it for the day, not a bad day overall, a couple of decent fish and some nice variety.  Water temps between 20 &21 degrees, water visibilty is till very good even at the bottom of the tide, a bit of bait around.  Was hoping for more surface action but it wasn't to be.

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Starting from the last week of September and through to the end of November I will only be online once a week at the most and that time will be limited.  During this time new registrations to the forum/message board will not be allowed.  New registrations to the main site will continue but any new reports will have to wait until I can have a look at them, that may take up to a week. If you want to put up a report then it's probably best to do it on the forum, that way you won't have to wait until I approve it. There will not be any reports from me during this time. It is a pretty good time for seaway fishing though so if you guys want info you are going to have to put up your own reports.    I should be back posting seaway reports in early december.

UPDATE: Registrations on the forum are now disabled, anyone who wants to register will have to wait until december.

Craig

Admin SeawayFishing

Went for a 4.30am - 9.30am session. Threw minnows and slugs at north and south wall before dawn only to manage 3 strikes and 2 small tailor. Pretty disappointing, after sunrise saw plenty a big tuna surface action on the way down towards mermaid. Didn't get close enough to put in any quality casts. All look to be about 60cm - 90cm models. Headed back towards stradbroke and found some salmon busting up, did manage some good cast but nothing. Followed the school for about 2 hours on the incoming tide. From in front of stradbroke they busted up 3 times, then to the North wall where they stayed up for quite some time (the school getting quite big now) busting up about 5 times. Managed to cast 7 - 30 gram slugs into the school with out a touch. The last we saw of them they were in the broadwater close into stradbroke island. They busted up another 4 times but very quickly. Managed a hit on a squidgie wriggler on the last bustup only to drop him. All salmon were 50cm plus... cant believe we couldn't catch just one. Very frustrating morning. Got such a good look at them plenty of times which makes it even more frustrating. In between chasing the school around, we did manage 3 tailor biggest going 46cm and about half a dozen bonito. Also got a good look at the small seal thats hanging around the seaway. Got very close and took some bad quality photos. The Seal looks injured as there looks to be some open wounds.




Overall... average and frustrating morning of fishing... seeing too many big fish unable to hook on. The salmon are definately here though... hope they hang around like the GTs did.

Conditions were right for a special trip targeting surface feeding jewies in the broadwater on saturday, so we got on the water very early at around 1am.  It only happens a few times a year and its a 50/50 chance that you'll find them but its always worth the effort as sometimes the fish can be quite large.  Indications were good as soon as we arrived at our chosen location and we could hear the telltale thwack of a surface feeding jewie every now and again.   We tried 95mm Owner Tango Dancers at first and managed to get a few hits and I managed to get a small tailor around 20cm but nothing big connected.  On the next drift we switched to vision 110's as they do seem to prefer lures that run shallow.  Sure enough within the first few casts I hooked up  but dropped the fish(thereby setting my tone for the rest of the trip) while dad hooked up on a very good fish which turned out to be a decent jewie at 75cm.  The fish had enhaled the lure headfirst and just the rear of the lure was sticking out of his mouth, unfortunately the back treble got caught on the net during landing and it ended up being ripped out of the lure.  Next drift I hookup up again only to drop the fish(again) and Dad picked up a very fat 52cm tailor.  We had a few more hits and tried a few more different lures but no more hookups after an hour so we headed into the seaway.

Fished around the walls for a bit but got nothing, alot of fish holding in close to wavebreak but they weren't eating.  At dawn we fished around the north wall, After a few casts on the northern side of the wall I saw a dark shape follow the lure to the boat, it looked like a cobia to me at first so I stuck the lure back in and swam the lure to try and get him to eat it, thats when he stuck his head out of the water and I realised it was a seal not a cobia.  Not a big one he was maybe around 80cm long, he stuck around for about 30 seconds before swimming off, wasn't quick enough to get a picture.  Never seen a seal in the seaway before and according to what I've read there aren't any in queensland so either he was very lost or he was an escapee from sea world.

Fishwise we picked up a few small tailor and bonito but it was fairly quiet, almost zero swell.. too calm for my liking.  Had a look around the pipe and wavebreak but didn't see anything interesting.  Headed offshore and about 1km south east of the seaway found a small pack of decent tuna feeding, first cast and I was on, a good fish too his first run had me down the the bottom half of the spool and we had to chase him, unfortunately 10 minutes into the fight the hooks pulled!@!@$!@#$#@%!@#$^!#%~!$ I just couldn't win today.  Headed down to mermaid hoping for some more but only found a few more bonito and small tailor.

So only a couple of decent fish caught and not by me, dad was happy though.  Nice conditions, no swell and barely any wind once the sun came up.