SeawayFishing Weekly Wrap Up Friday 8th November 2013

As we head towards the end of the year baitfish levels continue to increase, this week saw some interesting things happen. 

Tailor continue to be the most consistent catch, with them preferring the days with good wash around the north wall. I fished on Tuesday/Wednesday this week and the 20/25kt SE winds on Tuesday had the tailor active and feeding in the wash for hours.  Still had to work for them a bit but I was able to catch them on skitterbaits as late as 9am in the morning.  Minnows like the flash 15, 25 and vision 111 are still pulling some decent fish around dawn with the odd fish after sunup.  I didn't get a single fish on metals this week.  Afternoons just don't seem to be fishing well for them at the moment.




Kingfish are still around the Canyon and the Pipeline, though some days they aren't feeding much at all with just a few boils.  Tuesday they fed probably 10 times and I managed to get two decent casts into them, the skitterbait got hit twice but no hookup.  Wednesday they only came up 3 times each time around 5 seconds each, not enough time to get a cast in.

Bigeyes are around further up the Nerang river with a few around Marina Mirage but the bulk of the fish in the stretch from Sunrise Bridge to the Council Chambers feeding early mornings, late afternoons or just after dark.  There's only a few around the seaway, though with the volume of bait coming through I don't think it will be long before they return to the seaway area.

GT's are still further up the rivers, I've heard of a few from Marina Mirage and at random spots in the river  up to Lake Intrepid.

Small Mack Tuna have been turning up in the seaway but it's very random, there are there one day and gone the next.

I didn't see any surface feeding anywhere in the northern channel up as far as Crab or in the Southern channel this week.

The most interesting thing this week was finding massive schools of 10-15cm pike and 5cm yellowtail holding on the north wall flats dropoff.  I noticed these when they started jumping out of the water trying to get my lure which was swinging over the side of the boat.  I put on a bait jig and managed to get about 10 of these fairly quickly.  I've been wondering what the large bait was that I've been seeing in the seaway and that's what it was.  I know for a fact that the kingfish have been chasing these so having these as livies I though I might be in with a shot casting them unweighted into bustups.   Unfortunately the Kingfish really didn't show in any numbers on that day and I had to leave early so I didn't spend much time livebaiting them on the bottom.  I definitely think it will work but again accuracy and timing will be important.  If you can get a live mini pike into a kingfish bustup I don't think they would refuse it.   It also explains why skitterbaits are getting some interest, the small thin profile is a pretty good imitation of a small pike.

So overall not much improvement on last week but with the sheer volume of bait around(Eyes + Frogmouths + Small Yellowtail + Small Pike) I can't imagine the seaway will be overlooked by predators much longer. Water temperatures are still low, around 21.5 degrees this week.

A skitterbait Tailor

Tailor on a Flash 15

Small pike caught on a bait jig off the north wall flats dropoff

Active kingfish near the pipeline

Inactive kingfish on the bottom near the canyon, you can also see the pike to the upper  left and a school of frogmouths to the upper right