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There have been some big kingfish roaming the harbour. Kingies estimated over 10kg have been spotted chasing baitfish in The Spit area and anglers fishing from the wharf in Chowder Bay claim they have been busted off on 20kg line.
Salmon can be found between the Heads although most of the action seems to be around North Head. Trevally, and occasionally kingfish, can be found under the salmon. Bonito are straying into the harbour although if you are seriously targeting them, you will do better just outside between South Head and the Gap. And even striped tuna have made infrequent sorties into North Harbour.
The green blinker between Camp Cove and Lady Jane Beach has been producing bream and small snapper on an early-morning incoming tide. Best baits have been pilchard cubes or small bottle squid. Roger Griffiths and mates anchored up about 70 metres out from Laings Point, at the northern end of Watsons Bay, for a dozen bream, bag limits of tailor and some leatherjackets.
Ian Whitehead has been making some early-morning forays down to Camp Cove and fishing around the posts near the beach, where he has been catching whiting up to 600g on bloodworms. You can pack up once the swimmers arrive.
The mooring dolphins off Nielsen Park at Vaucluse provided some good fishing for Vic Brain and party, who fished there early morning. They boated snapper, bream and tailor using pilchards and nippers for bait.
The float fishers are still finding some reasonable numbers of blackfish. One of the better spots has been the deep water on the western side of Clarke Island. Some of the fish have been nudging the kilo mark and there are a few surgeonfish also taking weed baits.
West of the Bridge, the ever-reliable flathead drifts around Cockatoo Island continue to supply flathead up to 2kg. A paternoster rig baited with salted whitebait is the best method. If you tie up to the pylons under the wharves on the eastern side of the island, you will have no trouble getting a feed of leatherjackets.
Hawkesbury River
Acres of salmon have been working the bait schools at the mouth of the river between Barrenjoey and Box Head for weeks. They are feeding on small baitfish and will readily take a small chrome lure or a fly Early morning until about 9am is best and then they will just switch off. Some of the schools have been working farther up into Pittwater and into Cowan Creek, where they seem to stay on the bite longer.
The northern shoreline of Jerusalem Bay has been a spot where you can sometimes find them, even into the afternoon, with tailor mixed in. If you are in that area you could also try the sandflats inside Little Shark Rock Point, where they are catching some stud whiting. The fish are very shy and the water very clear, so you will need to fish very light lines.
The best spots to try for the bream are in the oyster leases up in Mullet and Mooney Mooney Creeks, although Jim Pappas took a bag of 14 bream to 1.3kg fishing at Bar Point. Jim fished the deep water off the edge of the reef, using black crabs and skirt steak and had his best results during slack water.
I also had a report of some big bream caught near the boat ramp at Berowra Waters. This is a great spot for a family picnic with excellent facilities and well worth wetting a line while you wait for the meat to cook on the barbie. The food scraps from the nearby restaurant tend to hold the fish in the area and, although it is relatively shallow and there is a lot of boat traffic, it is surprising the numbers of quality fish that are caught there.
Botany Bay
Tailor continue to be the predominant species in the Bay. The hot water outlet, Watts Reef, The Patches and the reclamation wall have been the hot spots, particularly at night.
Flathead are the best option for daytime fishing. One party scored 30 flatties between the second and third groynes along Silver Beach at Kurnell. They jigged the fish using single-tail pink plastics. Archie Gemmell and his grandson drifted about 300 metres off the beach between Brighton Baths and the Cooks River for 14 flathead and some plate-size flounder on whitebait and prawns.
Catches of up to a dozen blackfish have been taken from the eastern side of Bare Island. Cabbage bait is the preferred option and the run-in tide is the time to fish. Boat anglers have been doing alright on trevally on the bommie on the south-eastern corner of Bare Island. They are picking up a few reds there, too.
The Georges River has plenty of bream taking baits but there are a lot of small fish. Land-based anglers are hooking heaps of bream in Chipping Norton Lakes but nearly all of them have to go on the measuring stick.
Better news on the jewfish scene, with school jew caught between the M5 Freeway bridge and Milperra bridge. Eddy Rourke has been getting fish to 6kg at the mouth of Kelso Creek using pilchards and squid.
A drift along the edge of the channel from Coolum Beach to Sandy Point should find you some flathead, flounder and whiting. In the Woronora River, Mark Sawyer caught nine bream and a whiting near the entrance to Loftus Creek and Mal Gilbertson has been catching bream at Pyramid Rock using his ‘secret recipe’ pudding bait.
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