Seaway Report 5th-6th February 2013 Foul Weather Fishing Reaches New Heights

So I wanted to fish some more bad weather, plenty of that around at the moment so I decided on an overnighter Tuesday/Wednesday.  On the water at 2.30pm, the wind was blowing 20-25 knots plus a 2m SE swell and rain patches.  The tide was halfway through the incoming and the water was clean, visibility a couple of metres, water temps 25-5-26 degrees. Went straight to the seaway and had a looksee, a couple of boats over the pipe but not much on it so headed out to the end of the south wall which was a bit protected from the wind.  Looking around I spotted a heap of birds feeding in front of the north wall right in the exposed section.  It didn't look too bad there so I made sure everything was set up, had my lifejacket on etc and headed over slowly.  Once I arrived it was rough as you would expect but fishable as long as you kept away from the wall.  Luck was on my side as the fish were feeding from 50m-200m out from the wall, which enabled me to keep a safe distance but it was still rough, wet and windy, easily the worst conditions I've fished in yet.  I started off further out and it turned out they were schools of small mack tuna around 50-60cm, they weren't fussy and after an hour had 10 or so in the boat on twisties.




I took a break from the rough stuff headed back inside the broadwater to have a look, nothing in there but a dredge and a new 6kt zone right at the northern edge of wavebreak heading north for about 500m.  Back to the north wall with the wind increasing in strength I focused on the closer in schools which turned out to be a mix of bigeyes and kingfish.  Switched my lure to a 15 gram gillies which I thought would be better in the cloudy conditions.  Caught about 10 bigeyes ranging from 30cm up to 50cm, hooked and landed one kingfish at 67cm and lost another kingfish at the boat.  While the schools weren't feeding constantly, when one went down another came up 100m or so away so I was constantly on the move.  Top fun.  At around 6pm the wind increased up to 37kts(69kph) and the tide turned to run out making that area unfishable.  Had a look along the south wall again and had a fish along the inner section of the north wall with minnows and poppers but no joy there.  Had a look along the pipeline but nothing around so had another look in the protected parts of the broadwater but nothing.  Headed back to the pipeline after dark but the dolphins were on the job  scaring the fish away, tried for tarpon but got zip.  Gave it away until the next important tide to hit, the incoming tide.

At 2am, the wind had dropped down to about 15kts I came back to the pipeline but the dolphins were still there so I tried for tarpon again but not so much as a hit.  Headed out into the area where all the fish were in the afternoon.  The swell was still there but the drop in wind speed made it alot easier to fish.  I started off with a popper and first cast it was hit by a reasonable bigeye around 40cm, then I pulled another half dozen bigeyes best going around 50cm.  At dawn I switched to a minnow and fished the edges but got nothing until the bigeyes starting busting up along the front of the north wall.  Picked up another 10 bigeyes there until they went down as the sun came up.  Fished plastics on the bottom and worked the walls again but got zip.  I did see a nice tailor around 65cm taken on the bottom by another boat, jigging a metal I think.  There were some small bigeyes over the pipe sporadically busting up but by then I'd had enough.  Spent the rest of the morning taking underwater footage using a custom mount developed to give a fish eye view of things, footage turned out well too.

So overall, lots of bigeyes, some tuna and one lone kingfish but some top action in the rough stuff.  Strange there were no tailor around, nothing around the walls at all in fact.  The water is cleaning up fast, 2hrs either side of high its reasonably clean, the rest of the time its a dirty grey green colour.

As for the Gopro, while the visuals are first class it has a number of issues which you have to deal with.  Firstly sound is just okay, while it catches the sound of water just fine, voices just don't get through the case and there is some high level bitsy interference as well. Secondly the software inside the camera has a tendency to freeze up once it gets hot, you can reboot it by taking out the battery and putting it back in but in rough conditions its a pain in the bum.  Thirdly this thing eats batteries like candy, I have 3 batteries and thats enough to get about 1.5hrs of video allowing for idle time.  I can handle the issues but if you guys are considering one its worth keeping these things in mind or waiting until gopro can improve things.

Date	Time Fished	Tides
Tuesday 5th February	2.30pm - 10.30pm	0341 1.38 1004 0.43 1542 1.02 2141 0.24
Wednesday 6th February	2.00am - 11.00am	0451 1.49 1121 0.34 1701 1.05 2252 0.18