Now Thats More Like It… Seaway Report 8th March 2013

So the weathers been bad, really bad.  Wind, big swell, rain and floods have made the last couple of months a bit  of a gamble when it comes to fishing the seaway.  Well if today's results are anything to go by, the seaway won't take long to return to glory once this weather pattern buggers off.  The fish are there, you just need a bit of luck and be in the right spot to have a shot at a good fish. 
I'm preferring the top half of the run in tide at the moment, cleaner water and less breaking waves around the front.  Looking at this week I decided on having a fish on friday, with the top half of the run in peaking just after dawn the water should be clean enough to have a shot at some fish.   On the water at 3.30am headed into the seaway, wind was at 25kts ESE(just a slight breeze..), swell was 1.5-2m from the SE.  Water visibility was around a metre and it was a dark green colour, not great but its been worse. Tide was halfway through the run in.  Weed was gone thankfully.

Due to the wind I decided to do a run along the south wall and see if I could spot anything on the sounder, didn't see anything interesting so went out as far as I could before the waves started getting a bit hairy(about 3/4 of the way up the wall.  Drifted back with the tide and started off casting around a 3/8 zman paddletail in a silver fleck colour. First drift managed a hit, so went back to the top and did it again.  Second drift hookup and a long screaming run, one jump and it was gone..tarpon, felt like a good one though.  Next drift hookup again, this time a smaller tarpon around 55cm came to boat fairly quickly after a couple of jumps then it tossed the hook right next to the boat.

Decided on a change of tactic, off with the zman and on with the favourite, a ecogear grass minnow in silver fleck.  Next drift dad hooked up and after a torrid fight we netted a 58cm tarpon.  I was next with another tarpon around 55cm.  First light was upon us and I hooked up again, this time it was a bigeye around 40cm.  Next drift I hooked up again this time with a solid fish which screamed off and kept making multiple long runs which had me thinking large bigeye.. then it jumped.. but only once..Tarpon but a good one.  I finally netted it and it went 67cm on the mat, equal my biggest in the seaway, a very solid fish.  One more bigeye after that then things went quiet.

Dawn was upon us so a change of tactic was necessary, on with the poppers and over to the north wall, thankfully the wind had eased just a bit so it was fishable.  We worked the edges with poppers, dad managed 2 tailor around 40cm in quick succession while I got zip. Tried twisties and minnows got zip.  Time for another change, we headed down to the pipe but didn't see anything interesting, went for a run down the broadwater, no birds no fish.

Came back to the north wall just after the tide had turned to run out, while the channel was quite ugly(swell against tide) it was fishable right at the front of the wall.  The swell was pounding the flats area hard but it looked very fishy, I thought there would be some fish holding underneath the surf at the edge of the drop-off.  Changed to a 20gm twisty on my 6lb braid outfit and punched out a cast right  into the breaking waves, let it sink to the bottom, wound in the slack and bang I was on, solid fish too, didn't run til it got under the boat then proceeded to give me grief for the next 10 minutes, finally after numerous attempts a nice 56cm GT slid into the net.   Dad pulled in a couple more small tailor after that, then I noticed so shows of fish on the sounder, looked small but I dropped the twistie down there anyway, hooked up straight away and up came a small bigeye foul-hooked, another one followed shortly after.  Tried a few more lures without luck and called it a morning around 8am.

So overall a very good morning, a couple of really good fish and quite a few smaller ones as well.  A good example of what march can produce. As long as this cyclone stays away from us things should continue to improve, water quality goes down quite quickly after the turn to run out though.  Most of the dirty water is coming from the nerang side this time.

More pics are coming but have to capture them off the video, will take a while to put together the video but you should find it interesting as it gives a Craig's eye view of fishing the seaway.

Date	Time Fished	Tides
Friday 8th March	3.30am - 8.00am	0538 1.57 1205 0.23 1802 1.18 2347 0.19