Seaway Weekly Wrap Up Friday 26th April 2013

It's been an interesting week on the water with a bit of variety in the fishing.  The here today gone tomorrow nature of the seaway was very evident this week and those of you only fishing for GT's should remember that, they could leave at any time.

Monday/Tuesday Overnighter 22nd/23rd April

On the water at 3pm, just in time for the run in tide, the bigeyes came up over the pipe first but finicky none were landed, then the Gt's came up near the point of the triangle near the cardinal mark but they were finicky too.  It wasn't until they came up near the Canyon that I hooked and landed one at 66cm.  They came up a few more times but no more hookups.  Dark settled in shortly after and the sky was clear and the moon nearly full.  It wasn't long before I heard some pops on the surface near the pipeline, that's classic bigeye surface feeding behaviour so I put on a Rapala Skitter pop 9 in chrome and proceeded to land half a dozen bigeye trevs from 45-50cm before a bigger fish took it home to the pipeline.  Once the tide slowed they went of the bite and I spent the rest of the time working the walls for tarpon but no joy.




At 4am the next morning I met Rob and we had a look around but it was all quiet until just on dawn when I hooked a decent Tarpon on a 3/8oz ccm grass minnow that jumped off at the boat.  We tried the edge fishing around the north wall but it was quiet  still.  We saw the kingfish a few times but as usual no hits.  At the top of the tide we tried for a jewie and managed 2 around 60cm in quick succession on 1 oz 7" jerk shad in pearl.  That was it for the morning and it was a long wait through the day until the next run in tide.  This time I had Wade in  the boat, pretty much the same as the afternoon before, bigeyes first around the pipe but no  hookups then GT's around the canyon.  I hooked up first on a 20gram twisty then got busted off about 30 seconds later, then Wade hooked up and landed a 63cm GT on a 30gram twisty.  I hooked up again only to pull the hooks. Grrr.

Dropped wade back off at the ramp then waited for the bigeyes back over the pipe and they were on the job straight away and the action was heavier than the previous night with heaps of bustups and bow-waving fish chasing reasonable size bait.  Hooked and landed a dozen or so bigeyes on poppers(Rapala Skitter pop 9, Zip baits POP , stickbaits(Lucky Strike thunder 80mm) and minnows (Lucky Strike King Hunter 100mm).  Lost one Skitter pop 9 in chrome and 1 King Hunter 100mm in green to rampaging behemoths I couldn't stop on 20lb braid, both made it back to the pipe after epic battles.  Once the tide turned to run out the action petered out and I called it a night at around 10pm.

Thursday Afternoon 25th April

Went out in Wades boat, the plan was to hit the GT's first, then try for bigeyes then have a go at some tarpon.  I joined him at 4pm and the bigeyes turned up first in the channel leading south from the pipe, managed a couple of hits before we got distracted by the GT's near the Canyon.  We managed a double hookup his on 30gram twisty and mine on 3/8oz squidgy flick bait and landed both fish despite the fish wrapping the lines around each other.  Trying to get two angry Gt's in the one net at the same time is not easy... His was an exceptional specimen that would have been in the high 60's and mine would have been around 60cm, no measure in the boat so we will never know exactly.  That was it for them, they came up a few more times but only halfheartedly.

We moved into the seaway for dark and did a few drifts but the difference was obvious, on Tuesday the sounder was stacked with fish, on Thursday the sounder was bare, not a fish or bit of bait to be seen.  No surface feeding either, we tried the channels leading to the seaway in case they had followed the bait into one of them but saw nothing.  We came back into the seaway near the top of the tide and began throwing lures at the walls.  Wade was the first to be hooked up on a Transam and he promptly got busted off.   Then I hooked and landed a 55cm Tarpon on a 3/8 ccm grass minnow.  That done I switched to a new plastic I've been thinking of using for Tarpon for a while, thats a 3/8oz Zman 2.5" GrubZ  in Shimmer Pearl colour.  The action got hotter and we were getting multiple strikes per retrieve. That lure caught the next 4 Tarpon including one of Wades all from 55cm t0 63cm. We only jumped off 2 fish so that was quite a good retention rate.  They went off the bite as the tide turned to run out and we called it a night at around 11pm.

Friday Morning 26th April

After only 4 hours sleep I headed out again, this time with Dad.  On the water at around 4am, we had a look at the pipe first, lo and behold the bigeyes had returned, you could see them on the sounder but they weren't active so we worked the walls again.  Wasn't until first light that dad hooked a good tarpon on a 75mm white Squidgy slick rig but lost it at the boat.  Next up was a Jewie around 55cm quite an odd catch working the edges.  Then just to prove the first one wasn't a fluke he pulled in another Jewie in the Mid 60's on the same lure.  No more fish after that so we had a look around the end of the north wall and spied some fish working a little bit north, turned out they were Watsons Leaping Bonito and we got a few before moving back into the seaway.  Nothing over the pipe so we headed to the Canyon, the GT's and kingfish came up twice only and we were in the wrong spot both times so no fish for us.  We headed offshore to look for tuna and found plenty of mack tuna in varying sizes  just offshore from surfers.  We landed about half a dozen before they disappeared and called it a morning at around 9am.

So quite a variety in species there and some excellent quality among them.  This weekend has exceptional morning tides for GT's and Kingfish so it would be worth going out to have a look for them, but there's also a few other species kicking around that are a lot of fun if you can catch them feeding.  I have a lot of work to do here so I will leave it all to you guys.  Enjoy!

Date	Time Fished	Tides
Monday 22nd April	3.00pm - 11.00pm	0522 1.40 1141 0.24 1805 1.34 2356 0.33
Tuesday 23rd April	4.00am - 9.00am 12.30pm - 10.00pm	0607 1.44 1218 0.16 1847 1.47
Thursday 25th April	2.00pm - 11.00pm	0130 0.18 0733 1.45 1332 0.05 2010 1.70
Friday 26th April	4.00am - 9.00am	0218 0.14 0817 1.42 1412 0.03 2053 1.77

Successful Lure’s Rundown

• Halco Twisty 20/30 gram in chrome – Price $5-7 – 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/green – 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.
• Zipbaits ZBL Popper in Shocker - Price $20.00 - Availability - Don't Know.
• Zman 2.5" GrubZ in Pearl Shimmer - Price $8.00 - Availability - Tackle Warehouse, some other tackle stores.

 

Fishing Gear Used

Samaki Allure SA-701SM 7' Spin rod / Daiwa SOL II 3000H reel / 20lb Yellow Sunline Momentum 4×4  / 30lb Famell Super Shock Leader