Looking Back at 2012

Well what a year it has been, where 2011 was characterised by an excellent run of salmon 2012 was unquestionably the year of the GT.  I have never seen so many big GT's around for so long.  Lets hope they continue to show well into 2013.  Actually it has been a good year for trevally all round with some catches of Goldens, silvers, Cale Cale, Diamond, longnose and the ever present Bigeye Trevally. Oddball catches of the year included cobia and saddletail snapper.




Early in the year we saw schools off striped, yellowfin and mack tuna just offshore, the seaway itself held plenty of school size GT's, small jewies, bigeyes and tailor.  By late march the schools of Big GT's had arrived and were all over the place, from outside the seaway walls right through to crab island.  Timing was critical to catch them feeding though.  Tarpon also showed up in the seaway from March to May then headed back into the broadwater where they were only sporadically caught.  Yellowtail kingfish made an appearance as well but few were caught, the bait they were feeding on was quite small and they refused most lures.  By mid year the GT run was in full swing and some memorable sessions were had using a number of techniques trolling, jigging and casting at bustups.  A few hairtail showed up but most were small. Mack tuna were still around but mainly small fish.  Bigeyes, and jewies also were around but mostly small fish with the occasional larger fish.  By september we were seeing some decent schools of tailor but mostly chopper size, few were above 40cm.  Schools of bonito also showed up around the north wall and stayed for weeks, the seaway stagnated for a bit.  Late October saw the arrival of some bigger tailor and some of the larger bigeyes but not much in numbers.   December saw the return of the big GT's as well as some decent tailor and lots of small bigeyes.

So not a bad year overall, plenty of fish though not much in size except for the GT's which were very big fish on average, I upgraded my PB(now stands at 73cm) on GT's at least 3 times this year.  Lets hope in 2013 we get some kingfish that actually want to eat lures. Thanks for all your input this year, 2013 will see some big changes here but it should only make it an even better resource for all seaway fisho's.  More info on that later.