Seaway Combined Report Thursday-Friday 4-5th April 2013

Thursday 4th April

After my less than stellar effort on tuesday in perfect conditions I decided to pick a day at the other end of the extreme with 25-30kt winds and rain. That day was Thursday and going by the tide an afternoon session was called for.  We got on the water at around midday and had a look around, wind was around the 25kt mark, swell was still quite small at around a metre from the SE, but there was a metre of wind chop on the top in exposed parts. Water at the bottom of the tide was quite good, a couple of metres of visibility. I had a brand new reel to test out today, a Daiwa TD SOL II 3000, one of the new generation small high speed reels and a perfect size for seaway work. Capable of holding 300+ metres of 10lb braid, just incase you hook that seaway monster.

We headed out to the end of the south wall and immediately noticed birds and fish working a big ball of bait right off the end of the wall, we tried a few casts but couldn't get close enough so we headed out into the rough water. Despite multiple attempts to get close enough to the carnage the conditions proved to be too much, we did manage a couple of hits but no hookups. Those fish went down as the tide started to push in and we moved over to the north wall where we found some queenies and bigeyes feeding.

We left those as the cleaner water started to push in and headed down to wavebreak to see if the GT's would turn up. We waited and waited and they finally showed at 1.45. Rather than try and catch the GT's myself, I left that to dad and concentrated on trying to get the camera right into the bustups and capture footage of them feeding. After a couple of false starts I managed to get the camera right into a major bustup and even had them feeding around the camera. Over the next hour they came up 4 times, dad managed to land 3 Gt's from around 45-55cm and lost a bigger fish at the boat.

By 3pm they were done and we moved back into the seaway where we found a ball of frogmouth pilchards in close to the tower on the south wall. They were being attacked by small bigeyes, we didn't hook any but I did manage to get the camera right into the ball and get some great footage.

From there we moved back up to the south wall tip where another ball of froggies had gathered, they were then smashed by mid sized bigeyes, we cast in there but the lures were constantly fouled by baitfish they were so thick, we did manage to land one bigeye which was deformed. Then we got distracted by some bird action over by the north wall, when we got there it was rough and the strong winds meant we had to keep the boat in reverse the whole time. We copped a couple of waves over the stern including one big mother which had us both soaked, lucky I have a bilge pump! The fish there were big tailor, we landed 2 around the mid 50's and lost two which would have been well over 60 before some spearfisherman showed up to spook the fish.

From there we moved down to the pipeline which had fish busting up all over it which turned out to be small mack tuna around 60cm, managed a couple of those before they went down. As the sun began to set schools of bigeyes popped up and began smashing into baitfish good size fish too with most around the mid 50 mark. When they went down, the tuna popped up again, this time in a big school which stayed up, every cast was a fish for about 20 minutes. Then just as the sun went down the bigeyes popped up for one last time before a heavy downpour saw them sound.

Once the sun had set we worked the walls for a while and picked up a few more mid 50's bigeyes then called it a night around 8.

Friday 5th April

Just wanted a casual fish today but was interested to see if the previous days action would be repeated, couldn't get on the water until 3pm so I knew I'd be a bit late. The changes in conditions were obvious, the swell was larger and now from the south east and pushing in the seaway and the wind had swung around more to the east. It was obvious where the action was when I arrived, all over at north wavebreak. While there I met a few of the SeawayFishing members Outcast, Jethro, Kane, Gretsch, Twitchy good to see you guys out there.
Anyway I put on a 25gram gillies pilchard and chucked it into a bustup and was soon rewarded with a feisty GT in the mid 50's. Next up I was saying hi to the water police as I was bringing in a cast I'd thrown into a bustup when less than a metre away from the boat a big kingfish smashed it and boy didn't that reel scream when he took off... right around the boat and around the beacon about 50 metres away, that hookup lasted all of 10 seconds. After that the kingfish turned up in bigger numbers and I concentrated on trying to get the camera into them without pissing off all the other boaties..If I did sorry about that, but analysing feeding behaviour footage will enable us to find a better way of catching them.

Once that seemed to die down went back into the seaway and had a look around, certainly less action than the previous day and all the bait seemed to be spread out around in the Triangle, it wasn't balled up like yesterday. No fish came up so I worked the wall with a 80mm thunder stickbait and on the first cast hooked up on another fish which turned out to be a GT around 50cm. Successive casts yielded nothing so I went down to the pipeline and the bigeyes came up briefly just as the sun set. That was pretty much it, called it a night just after 7pm.

So two days, two vastly different experiences and a good example of how quickly things can change in the seaway. There was much more GT and kingfish action on the friday than the thursday though as they pretty much fed from about 2.30 to sunset. But the rest of the fish did a no show on the friday, don't know why. Still tons of bait around, maybe they were still full from the previous day or maybe they did their feeding in the morning.

Date	Time Fished	Tides
Thursday 4th April	12.00pm - 8.00pm	0302 1.47 0945 0.35 1543 1.06 2121 0.41
Friday 5th April	3.00pm - 7.00pm	0413 1.48 1047 0.29 1652 1.16 2235 0.36
Tuesday 2nd April	4.30am - 12.30pm	0033 1.54 0711 0.36 1255 1.05 1837 0.36

Successful Lure’s Rundown

• Halco Twisty 20/30 gram in chrome – Price $5-7 – Availablity Kmart, BCF, Most tackle stores
• Gillies Pilchard 25 gram in chrome - Price $4-5 - Availablity Kmart, BCF, Most tackle stores
• Lucky Strike Thunder 80mm Stickbait in Pink/Silver - Price: contact supplier – Availability: email luckystrikeft@gmail.com

 

Fishing Gear Used

Samaki Allure SA-701SM 7? Spin rod / Daiwa SOL II 3000H reel / 10lb Yellow Sunline Momentum 4x4  / 30lb Famell Super Shock Leader