Seaway and Broadwater Report 13-14 August 2013

Decided to dedicate a whole day to fishing on Tuesday. Looking at the tides and conditions I decided on a plan of attack, serious livebaiting in the morning then fishing the run out tide in the Northern Y and Canyon in the afternoon with plastics and trolling minnows. Arrived at the seaway at 5.30am and headed straight out to the livebait grounds. Wind was 5kts from the NW, the Swell was about 1m from the NE.  Chose the close in grounds this time and started gathering livies. With the tide turning to run in around 8am I had until 7.30 to get as many livebaits as possible. While the bait wasn't thick I still managed 30 or so by 7.30, a mix of yellowtail, bulleyes, slimies and pike. I headed back to the north wall and while I was waiting for the tide to push in I threw around a skitterbait and got hit by a decent tailor but the hooks pulled at the boat.

As the tide pushed in around the north wall I deployed the livies starting with the smallest yellowtail I had, the snot weed was bad initially but cleared up as the tide pushed it away.   The fish were not sitting in the eddy this time but were sitting right on the front south eastern point of the tidal flow, took me a little while to figure out the drift and I dropped quite a few fish but I still managed to land 2 tailor around 50cm and 3 jewies from 50cm to 76cm. About an hour after the tide began to push in the fish went off the bite, I tried down near the pipe but got nothing so I stopped livebating in order to conserve the rest of my livebaits for the last hour of the run in tide. I had a look around in the broadwater but saw nothing. I spent the rest of the time putting the camera down under the water(alot of snot weed on the bottom).

At 11.30 as the tide bgan to slow I got back into it and headed back to the north wall, the wind had changed direction going to 15kts from the SE, wet but fishable.  First drop saw me land an 78cm jewie then three more of his brothers at 77, 75 & 79cm respectively, then a whole bunch of tailor in the 45-50cm mark. That used up the rest of my yellowtail and the only things I had left was 2 bullseyes, 1 slimy mackerel and 1 pike.  Bullseyes don't seem to work as well on the north wall  so I headed down to the pipe and deployed a dual bullseye rig.  Basically two bullseyes one of each hook of a dual hook rig.  I'll be calling it a "Double Shot" in future. One bullseye seems to get ignored but you put two on there and the fish can't seem to resist it.  Wasn't until I did a long drift and I was 100m away from the pipe into the triangle that a fish decided it was too easy a meal to miss and after a spirited fight I had a 90cm Jewie in the boat.   I put down the slimy next but got nothing after a few drifts so I went back to the north wall and it got eating instantly but I pulled the hooks.  Pike was next and he got eaten instantly but I got cut off just as quick well above the trace... shark.

That was it for the livebaits, cleaned up the boat and got the lure gear ready.  Had a troll around the canyon and found the GT's on the sounder  in the northern most section of the canyon but they weren't eating.  So I commenced throwing pearl sliders on a 3/8z jighead around the northern Y, just casting it out letting it sink to the bottom then slow rolling it back.  While it was quiet I did hook one good fish but the hook pulled about a minute into the fight.

At 3.30 I went back to trolling with a Bolt Omega in Pearl.  The Bolt Omega is a deep diving minnow lure that gets down to 4.5m, it was the best minnow I used on my trip up north even beating the infamous XRD10 but I have only just started to use it properly in the seaway and it has done very well so far. More details about trolling the seaway and the Bolt Omega will be in the upcoming Trolling the Seaway Article.   I will soon have Bolt Omegas for sale in the SeawayFishing shop as well.

Anyway about 50m into the troll the lure along the eastern side of the Northern Y it got smacked by a Gt around 55cm.  I trolled around for a bit more and picked up another one around 60cm just over the edge of the canyon, then another around the same size.  By 5 pm I had 10 GT's in the boat and I was into a nonstop stream of GT's smacking the Bolt Omega as soon as it got to trolling depth, then I hooked a bigger fish which ran about 100 metres found some rock and took it home for keeps.  Checking all my tackle boxes I realised I only had 2 other deep diving lures as I had left the tackle box with all my deep divers at home.  One was a Rapala XRD10 brand new I hadn't even changed the hooks yet and a Sebile 118 Koolie Minnow.  I put on the XRD10 and it got hit within a minute, another big fish it screamed off into the northern Y and proceeded to bust me off again!!! $@#%@#$%^^!@%$.  Switched to a Lucky Strike Thunder sinking stickbait 110 in yellow picked up another one around 60cm then a few hits on the next few casts then nothing.  I went back to trolling with my last deep diving lure a Sebile 118 Koolie Minnow on my only rigged outfit left, 12lb Spider Braid 20lb leader.  As soon as the lure got down to swimming depth it got hit, another GT and they just kept biting until it got dark.  Just on dark I changed tack and threw out a Lucky Strike King hunter in Redhead, hooked and landed 1 Gt around 60cm but that was it for the day.

Called it a day after that, quite happy with the days efforts.

I also went out on Wednesday afternoon with Mick only to see if the GT's would feed like that again. Winds had changed back to a light NE.  Right on 4pm I hooked on to a GT around 55cm on the Sebile Koolie Minnow, then another soon after a bit bigger.  Then there was a bit of a pause until about 5pm then we landed 3 more in quick succession and I got busted off again losing the Koolie Minnow. @!#$%$$#^%@!  The GT's had moved and were not around the canyon where we got the first two but were further down about halway through the middle of the Northern Y.  That was it though, the northerlies had obviously made them a bit more shy  than the southerlies I was fishing in on tuesday.  The deeper diving Koolie Minnow(5m+) definitely had the edge on the shallower running XRD10's Mick was using hooking 4 of the 6 fish.  A Bolt Omega caught the other fish after I lost the Sebile.

So some good fishing to be had out there, I know alot of people are struggling to get good fish at the moment but it is super important to fish those main feeding periods.  Dawn, Dusk, The first hour of the run in and last hour of the run in regardless of the time of day.  Make sure you plan your trips around them.

Snot weed will be around in increasing amounts for the next few weeks,  it happens every year at this time and its just something you have to deal with as best you can.  Most of it is coming out of the Northern Channel so if it is too thick concentrate on the southern side of the seaway, stick with surface lures or fish the second half of the run in tides.

Successful Lure’s Rundown

• Pearl Slider – price $10.00/10 pack – Availability – SeawayFishing Shop or some tackle stores
• TT 3/80z 3/0H Headlockz Jighead – Price $9.00 / 5 pack – Availability – Most tackle Stores
  
• Skitterbait 9 – Price $15.00 – Availabilty – SeawayFishing Shop(soon!)
• Bolt Omega - Price $12.50 - Availability - Some Tackleworld Stores & Seawayfishing shop(Soon!)
• Rapala XRD10 - Price $20-25.00 Availability - Most Tackle Stores & Seawayfishing shop(ST only)
  
• Sebile Koolie Minnow 118 LL Barra Tough - Price $20-25.00 - Availability - Most Tackle Stores
• Lucky Strike Thunder 110 Stickbait - Price: contact supplier – Availability: email luckystrikeft@gmail.com
• Lucky Strike King Hunter - Price: contact supplier – Availability: email luckystrikeft@gmail.com

Fishing Gear Used

• SWF Strong  LLBC702M/ML 7' Spin rod / T7-30 Reel /12lb Yellow Spider Braid / 20lb Famell Super Shock Leader
• Daiwa Sol 702 L 7' Spin rod / Daiwa Advantage 2500 Reel /12lb Yellow Spider Braid / 20lb Famell Super Shock Leader
• Daiwa Advantage 702 MH 7' Spin rod / Shimano Stradic 4000FJ Reel /16lb White Spider Braid / 30lb Famell Super Shock Leader
• Berkely  661 MH 6" Spin rod / Daiwa SOL 3000 Reel /30lb Grey Saltiga Braid / 50lb Famell Super Shock Leader(livebaiting)