SeawayFishing Weekly Wrap Up 12th April 2013

Been a busy week so I'm just going to condense all my reports into one.  
Monday 8th April afternoon - On the water at 3pm, headed straight for the canyon, bottom of the tide but there were a few tailor kicking around near the dredge.  Had a look around the seaway but all quiet, went back down to wait for the clearing tide.  At around 4.30 the kings showed up, first cast nothing, second cast I put in front of a group of 5 fish that were swimming past the boat and one grabbed it, then proceeded to bust me off me in less than 30 seconds.  They continued to come up every 10-15 minutes or so for the next hour, but noone hooked any more, then the GT's showed up just as the sun set. Only one was hooked and landed by Gretsch on a big halco roosta popper.  After the sun went down I spent some time looking for tarpon, hooked 4, lost 2 on the hookup jump then the other 2 next to the boat.  Landed 1 bigeye around 45cm, all on 3/8th oz ecogear grass minnows in CCM.  End Report.




Thursday 11th April Morning - On the water at 4am, wind was 15-20kts from the SE, swell was 1.5m from the SE.  Spent some time looking for tarpon, took us a while to find them but when we did we proceeded to lose all 4 hooked... Bloody Tarpon.  Drifted the end of the wall with minnows, was trialling a new minnow a Lucky Strike King Hunter 100mm in Qantas colour, similar to a rapala xr10 but the action is more of a shimmy(which I prefer) rather than the excessive wobble of the rapala.  Didn't take long before I hooked and landed a tailor around 45cm, dad using a rapala landed a bream around 35cm.  We then got distracted by by some action down at the pipeline and headed down there.  Turned out they were decent schools of tuna up to about 65cm and every cast was a fish for about half an hour.  I was using a thunder 80mm stickbait and dad was using a twistie..  Interestingly I managed to get the camera into the bustups and while it was still too dark for decent video, it was good enough to show that bigeyes and GT's were hunting under the tuna schools and picking up the scraps the tuna were missing. So keep that in mind if you see tuna over the pipe, let your slugs sink  a bit deeper and you may end up tangling with a decent GT.  Once they went down we headed over to the canyon and saw a few kings on surface but they went down and didn't return.  Spent the rest of the time messing about with video and looking for fish, plenty of bait everywhere but no fish into them.  End Report.

Friday 12th April Morning -  On the water at 3.30am with Mick, the wind was howling at around 25knots from the SE, swell was 2m from the SE and it was the bottom of the runout tide.  Conditions were not conducive to good fishing so we sat it out until dawn, just on dawn the tide changed to run in and the seaway became less angry.  Just as it got light some tuna popped up over the pipe, I hooked something and then proceeded to get busted off on the pipe.....grrr.  5 minutes and about 3 bustups later they disappeared.  Headed down to the canyon and found some kingfish but same story as yesterday, 2 bustups for about 10 seconds then gone.  Headed back out into the seaway and spotted some birds in close to the north wall, that means big tailor so we headed up there and sure enough tailor were working the bait right into the rock edges on the incoming wave.  We both hooked up then dropped both fish, then another hookup for both of us, Mick landing a small bigeye, mine was the right fish a quality greenback tailor  at 68cm on a rapala skitter pop 9cm in chrome.  By the time that fish was photographed and released conditions were going to hell, the wind increased to 40 knots and the rain began pouring down.  We took a breather while that passed then the wind dropped off enough for us to get back there and we worked the wall edges both hooking up twice and both of us losing the fish.  Then they went quiet, chased some tuna further out but no joy there came back in for the top of the tide.  A bunch of fish popped up on surface in close to wavebreak for about 15 seconds but we got no hookups.   Messed around a bit more waiting to see if the fish would turn on once the tide started to run out but no joy.  End Report.

So what we have so far this week on the morning run in tides is some very short time surface feeding, not sure whats going on there, with so much bait around they are probably full and they are just 'topping up'.   Water temperatures are falling, down as low as 22.5 at the bottom of the run out, but increases to high 24's during the run in. Tons of bait around as usual seems to be mainly white pilchards but a few schools of froggies, but they are spread from marina mirage through to Sovereign Island with lots around the Triangle and the Dredge.  GT's have not shown up at all the last couple of days and the kings are only feeding for a couple of minutes at the most.  There are opportunities out there but they are very shortlived, pay attention or miss out. It will be interesting to see what happens during the weekend tides.

Date	Time fished	Tides
Monday 8th April	3.00pm - 9.30pm	0029 0.24 0651 1.51 1259 0.13 1919 1.47
Thursday 11th April	4.00am - 11.00am	0241 0.22 0843 1.35 1438 0.14 2109 1.59
Friday 12th April	3.30am - 12.15pm	0321 0.25 0917 1.28 1508 0.18 2144 1.58

Successful Lure’s Rundown

• Halco Twisty 20/30 gram in chrome – Price $5-7 – Availablity Kmart, BCF, Most tackle stores
• Gillies Pilchard 40 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
• Rapala Skitter Pop 9cm in Chrome - Price $14-25 - Availability Ebay, might get lucky in a tackle store.
• Lucky Strike King Hunter 10cm in redhead/white - Price: contact supplier – Availability: email luckystrikeft@gmail.com
• Ecogear grass minnow M in Chika Chika Muroran - Price $7-10 per pack - Availability Samurai tackle.
• TT Headlockz 3/8 oz jigheads 2/0HD - Price $8.00 - Availability - BCF, some tackle stores.

 

Fishing Gear Used

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