GLADESVILLE BREAM ARE HOT Shoey NIGHT-TIME anglers have been doing quite well on bream around the Gladesville area. Tarban Creek is one of the better spots and you can usually find a spot out of the wind there. Twenty members of the Welcome Hotel Fishing Club at Rozelle fished between the Lane Cove River and the Ryde Bridge. They weighed in 186 flathead, 2 leatherjackets, a tailor and a trevally. John Reid had the best catch of 9.5kg weight. Nearly all the fish were caught on whitebait. At Balls Head, they have been getting some good catches at night. Danny Gerbasi and Inan Koktas caught 38 bream, 12 trevally, 1 pike and a whiting there using nippers and worms. They caught most of their fish walking around in their sleeping bags. George Starfis landed a 5kg jewfish fishing from the point near the channel marker. He jigged some live squid first and used them for bait. Tailor and bream are being caught from the piers in Walsh Bay. You have to be there before sun up, for the tailor and the bream are best early morning. Blackfish are being caught near the chains during the day. The navy wharf at Chowder Bay has a resident population of trevally. Andrew Dennington and mates caught 54 trevally, 6 tailor and 6 bream from around the piles of the wharf, fishing at night using peeled Hawkesbury River prawns and pilchards. They saw some big kingfish following the hooked trevally but couldn’t get them to take a bait. Fort Denison is a likely spot. The red channel marker inside South Head is also worth a try, particularly fishing back to the buoy on the run in tide. For the land-based angler, the headland between Camp Cove and Watsons Bay has been producing for those casting pilchards well out. HAWKESBURY RIVER There are plenty of school jewfish in the upper reaches of the river. The Lautondale area has been producing jewfish up to 5kg, and one angler caught 14 jewfish up to 6kg at Dads Corner using live herring for bait. He released all the fish. Dick Woods bagged out on jewfish to 3kg fishing at Lautondale with Hawkesbury River prawns for bait. Dale Feget, with two mates, boated 13 schoolies to 4kg in the same area. Catches of up to half-a-dozen bream an outing are coming from the Spencer area. Some of the fish are up around the kilo mark, with the best bait being large Hawkesbury River prawns, if you can get them. Berowra Creek is producing bream at night in close to the rocky shores. One of the more productive baits has been skirt steak, cut into strips and rolled in parmesan cheese. The hairtail are still pretty scarce. A few fish have been caught in Waratah Bay and Smiths Creek, but the fish are not in large schools and are only being caught in ones and twos. Abdul Yay fished from the shore in Illawong Bay, Coal & Candle Creek, for 3 big hairtail and a 3kg jewfish. He had the place to himself, which is surprising as it tends to get fairly crowded there at this time of year. Some good catches of bream and whiting have been caught from the Bobbin Head wharf, at the top end of Cowan Creek, at night. Worms and nippers are the best bait. Chopper tailor are schooling right through Pittwater and are taking spun lures and pilchards. Mack tuna up to 7kg have been spun from around Scotland Island. BOTANY BAY Watts Reef has been fishing well for trevally and bream. Scotty Timmins and his dad fished there at night for a catch of trevally, bream, tarwhine and salmon. Ken Bushby tried the same area for 13 trevally and 4 bream using peeled Hawkesbury River prawns for bait. Nearby, at the hot water outlet, they are catching tailor up to 1.5kg. Fishing after dark is best with pilchards for bait. Jimmy Patterson and Peter Corley caught their bag limits there. Tailor and trevally are also on the bite at the Bare Island bommie. About 60m out from the green blinker is the best spot and if you can get a bait past the tailor and trevally, you should latch on to a few snapper and tarwhine. Shore-based anglers have been catching some nice whiting from the beach near the old Mick Maulins Pub and they are catching flathead along Kyeemagh Beach. Salmon and tailor have been caught from Ramsgate wharf on live yellowtail. Geoff Barr and Les King have taken some outstanding catches of blackfish from the Georges River. Their best outings have been in the Cranbrook area, where they have been getting boat catches of 20 to 30 on a regular basis and some of them have been big fish. Geoff measured one that went 48cm in length. They estimated the weight at 1.5kg. Peter Barratt and Gabriel Quercigrossi fished the sand flats at the Alfords Point Bridge where they caught 6 whiting and 6 bream fishing the run out tide. They could only get the fish to bite on squirt worms. Rob Lyons, who is a very active 79, fished above the Woronora Bridge during the run in tide for a catch of 7 big bream caught on Hawkesbury River prawns. OFFSHORE The strong westerly winds over the past few weeks have kept most of the small boaters fishing the close reefs. The Merries Reef in Bate Bay has trevally and small snapper. The close reefs either side of Botany Bay, particularly the patchy reef about 300m off Cape Banks, have produced snapper up to 4kg. Amiris Simonidis drifted near the traps off the Kurnell lighthouse with three of his mates for a catch of 40 fish that included snapper to 2.5kg, morwong, red mullet and leatherjackets. East and West Reefs, on the northern side of Broken Bay, have been producing trevally, snapper and bonito. The charter boats, getting out wider to Broken Bay Wide, have found snapper up to 6kg and some big morwong. The crew on the charter boat Aquilla took a top catch fishing off Stanwell Park. They boated 74 morwong, 26 pigfish, 12 snapper, 17 trevally and 7 leatherjackets. Drifting about 1km off the Water-run, south of Jibbon, Wally Hudson and mate boated their bag limits of flathead in a 2 hour session. Ross Hunter reports that they have been catching mackerel tuna at the Peak. On one outing they had 14 macks hit the deck, with fish up to 15kg. A few small kingfish are also being caught there. Yellowfin tuna up to 45kg have not been hard to find out wide. The fin are chasing schools of sauries on the surface and are taking trolled lures readily. Alex Matijivic, fishing on board the charter gameboat Gamefisher, hooked up to a yellowfin that he fought for an hour and 40 minutes on 24kg tackle before he got it to the boat. It weighed in at 97kg. ROCK & BEACH There are plenty of drummer coming from rocks. Mick Speer has been getting regular catches of drummer to 3kg from North Avalon but says that ab gut is a must for bait. Mark Wiper and Steve Taylor have also been doing well on drummer at The Blessings and Little Greeney at South Maroubra. Stan Constantaris has been fishing the same spots at South Maroubra but using crabs and pilchards for bait and getting a regular feed of bream. Michael Corben was fishing for bream in the corner of Lurline Bay, using pilchard cubes for bait, when the kingfish moved in. He was fishing light and got busted up a number of times but managed to land 2 fish around the 3kg mark. The rocks on the southern side of Wattamolla are producing plenty of salmon, with 3kg plus fish common. Mathew Corley is claiming a club record for a 4.8kg, cleaned weight, salmon he caught there. He also landed a 9kg mack tuna. Ricky Quercigrossi fished with Snap-off Pete and Mark McLean at Wanda Beach, where they caught some nice size tailor. Rick hooked into a jewfish that hit the sand at 13kg. The jewie took a whole slimy mackerel rigged on a 4 hook gang. The storm water drain on North Maroubra Beach is producing salmon at night. Bronte Beach has also been fishing for salmon. The best beaches on the north side have been Narrabeen and Collaroy for salmon and tailor, with a few whiting still coming off Narrabeen.