Seaway and Broadwater Report 29th March 2013

We got on the water around 4am to fish the last of the runout, swell was around 1.5m from the SE, wind was about 10kts from the east. With the evening tides coming too late I planned one last trip on thursday morning before the chaos of the easter weekend. The tide was due to start running in at around 4.45am which would mean the water should be clean enough for good surface feeding as the sun rose around 6am.We managed a few halfhearted hits and one small bigeye trevally but other than that it was quiet.  Dawn came and we worked the walls but got no interest.   We headed down towards wavebreak as the sun poked its head over the horizon and we found some fish busting into bait on the wavebreak flats.  Not big fish probably bigeyes but despite a few follows we couldn't hook one.




Getting a bit frustrated now we followed the birds around for a while until I saw what I was looking for, birds that were tracking fish down deep between the yellow x beacon at north wavebreak and the green beacon on the northern corner.    Didn't take long  for the fish to surface, and they were yellowtail kingfish, big ones too.  Now the surface feeding kingfish of the seaway and broadwater have a long and colourful($#@@%#$ kingfish!!) history here on SeawayFishing, they are well known for being very smart and nearly impossible to hook on lures.   Early indications looked like this being more of the same, so rather than just cast out at every boil I decided to concentrate on landing good casts right into the areas of heaviest activity.  This technique works well on GT's that are being fussy, fish that are competing with each other are more likely to hit something that doesn't look quite right.

We met Jonno there and he had his son Jett with him, Jonno picked a spot and Jett dropped his gillies 10gram silver to the bottom and promptly hooked up on a screamer of a fish which proceeded to bust him off about 20 seconds later.  It's not really a good place for 6lb line at the moment with beacons on either side plus anchored buoys and a piled dredge only 100 metres away.  Kingfish are notorious dirty fighters and there's plenty of structure there to make you cry.

Wasn't long before dad hooked up only to drop it shortly after just as the fish got into gear.  I was next with a good cast landing only a metre away from a major bustup, I saw the strike on surface as it entered the bustup though I thought I might have foulhooked him and rather than go hard on him I took it easy.    On 10lb braid there was no muscling this fish so I took it easy, and just lead him to the boat, a few halfhearted runs and a little bit of doggedness around the boat then I had him in the net.  Now a green kingfish is not a good thing to have in a boat, they are quite capable of destroying everything in there when they go berzerk but thankfully this one was very chilled out, maybe he has been hanging out with a bunch of jewies.   A few pics, a quick measure(90cm on the dot) then I had him back in the water, took him about a minute to get his breath back then he shot off into the depths.

The kingfish came up a couple of more times but by 7.30 they were gone, we hung around for another hour of so but they didn't return.  I think there was a school of GT's that came up as well but only once.  We messed around a bit after that but didn't catch anything else and called it a day at 9am.

So only 2 fish for the morning, but I'd take one decent kingie for a dozen smaller fish anyday.  Lots of bait around, mainly white pilchards around 5cm long from wavebreak all the way down to crab.  Being in the right place at the right time is still important so look at those tides before you go and try and pick a run in tide that coincides with dawn or dusk.  If you do use Gillies 15grams make sure you change those hooks, I use Decoy Y-S81 #6.

Date	Time Fished	Tides
Friday 29th March	4.00am - 9.00am	0317 0.12 0922 1.46 1522 0.06 2155 1.65

Successful Lure’s Rundown

1. Gillies Baitfish 15gram in white – Price $4-5 – Availablity Kmart, BCF, Most tackle stores

 

Fishing Gear Used

1. Samaki Allure SA-701SM 7? Spin rod  / Shimano Stradic ci4 4000 reel / 10lb white Stren Sonic Braid / 30lb Famell Super Shock Leader