Seaway and Broadwater Report Friday 18th January 2013

Into the seaway at 2.30am ran straight into some bigeyes occasionally hitting the surface over the pipeline.  Landed one about 40cm on a 85mm squidgy slick rig then proceeded to drop the next 5, just one of those things.  They weren't as active as the other night and were quite widespread but if you could get your lure into a bustup quick enough you were guaranteed a hit.  Had a quick fish for Tarpon, hooked one and it jumped straight off.  And that was it for them.

 




Dawn arrived and I picked up Wade from the ramp and we tried the pipe again(nothing) then moved out to the wall.  Found the tailor hiding in close under the suds and proceeded to land numerous small tailor between 30 & 40cm on twisties and poppers.  Did a drift alongside the inside of the wall and picked up one 45cm tailor on a popper.

Moved offshore and had a quick look around, found some bonito but soon got tired of them and went looking for tuna.  Did a circuit and found a very small school of striped tuna in close to south straddie, hooked and landed one about 60cm.  Came back in around 6.30 to check for GT's/kings.  Waited until 7am but nothing around.  Had to take Wade back to the ramp so he could get to work.  dropped him off and came back, determined to wait around until 9am, just in case.

Sure enough at around 7.20 the first school of fish popped up in exactly the same spot as the other day(I thought they were kings, now I know they were GT's being fussy), chucked a twistie at them but no takes.  I put the slug rod away and got out the rod rigged with a split shot and a nosehooked 3" flash J plastic in glow silver.  Next school that popped up I drove right up to it and cast that plastic right into the area with the heaviest bustups.  As soon as I closed the bail arm I was on the fish took off once I put the pressure on.  Landed the fish about 10 minutes later a nice GT of around 65cm.  I had the schools to myself for the next 2 fish as well and landed 2 more going 68 & 70cm.   Interestingly I drove right up to those schools and drifted right into them with the motor idling and it didn't bother them one bit, they kept feeding for another couple of minutes after that.  Many times I had fish busting up within a metre of the boat(which was awesome by the way), I have video of that incidentally but its pretty rough.. hard to fight a fish and take video at the same time.   Anyway another boat turned up and joined in the fun.  I landed 3 more GT's between 60& 67cm over the next 45 minutes or so before more boats arrived, unfortunately after that the tide started to run in and the GT's tapered off.  I had to leave at 9am so I'm not sure if they reappeared after that.

The split shot rig proved itself again today but position of the cast is critical for an instant take, it must go in the area of the heaviest activity so positioning according to wind direction is very important.  Incidentally I don't reccomend driving right into a school of fish like that with other boats around, they are likely to get cranky but if you have the schools to yourself it is an awesome thing to try.