The Harbour Shoey THE HARBOUR continues to amaze me with the abundance and variety of fish that can be caught in its waters. For a waterway, right on the doorstep of our capital city, it is truly a very fishy estuary. I recently spent a social afternoon with a group of 20 people on board the charter vessel Eastern Success. We anchored on the western side of Bradleys Head to have lunch and when some rods and lines were found, and we discovered a packet of prawns in the freezer, we decided to have a fish for an hour. Ten fish were caught including 7 different species. Not bad for a middle of the day session. There are leatherjackets everywhere around the foreshores. I even heard of one chap grabbing one by hand from one of the jetties. Try any rocky foreshore or jetty and you can’t miss. BREAM ON THE GO There are plenty of bream in the upper reaches of the Harbour with good reports from around the Abbotsford marina, Henley Point, Cabarita and the boat moorings downstream from the Gladesville Bridge. Dave and Malcolm Penman took a catch of 34 bream at Blackwall Point using nippers and worms for bait. Their best fish tipped the scales at 1.8kg. Robert Pratelli landed a 9.4kg jewfish fishing at Abbotsford Point. Robert was fishing for bream using a bit of squid on a number 1 hook when he hooked the jewie so it was quite an outstanding catch for a land based capture. Some big flathead are being caught in North Harbour, particularly around Reef Beach and Fairlight Point. Live bait is best with poddy mullet and small yellowtail accounting for a number of fish between 3 and 5kg. A few John dory are also being caught by those live baiting. The kingfish don’t seem to want to leave us. They have been roaming around the Wedding Cake markers early of a morning and visiting the Spit Bridge area of a night. Their favourite food, squid, have been a bit hard to find of late though. HAWKESBURY RIVER The bream are still scattered throughout the river. A few good catches have been coming from the Lautondale area. Most of the fish are being caught on Hawkesbury River prawns, but I heard of one catch of five bream that Peter Sullivan caught on earth worms. That’s not all that unusual when you are fishing in the brackish water. Bar Point and Spencer have also been producing bream on the small tides, and night time anglers have been doing well fishing in close to the shore in the bays of Cowan and Berowra Creeks when there is no moon. The drift from Juno to Lion Island has been producing flathead. Some anglers have been getting some good fish by bouncing a Mr Twister lure, with a cube of pilchard on the hook, along the bottom. This method works well if you can get a slow drift, so an hour either side of the turn of the tide is the best time. Lennie Vigurs and Mick Potts have been catching a lot of flathead in Mooney Mooney Creek. They haven’t been big fish and, although they have often caught there bag limit, they have only been keeping a couple for a feed. They are also picking up a few bream. Whitebait is proving the best bait. Strangely they seem to be getting the bream on the drift and the flathead at anchor. Dennis Piggott and family spent a morning fishing in Brisk Bay, off Patonga Beach, for a feed of 30 whiting caught on peeled prawns and beach worms. I don’t know what has happened to the hairtail this year other than to suspect the unusually warm water has kept them away from their traditional winter haunt in Cowan. I have seen a few appearing at the fish markets but I don’t know where the commercial fishermen are catching them. BOTANY BAY Trevally can be found right through the Bay. Mahomad and Abdul Radd, with two mates, fished Skippys Possie, between La Perouse and Bare Island, for a catch of 75 trevally up to a kilo in weight. The Bare Island bommie has been another spot fishing well for trevally. Molinaux Point provided trevally up to 2.2kg for Ross Abel and Gabriel Quercigrossi. The drift off the end of the runways produced a bag limit catch of flathead for David Fici with the best going 63cms in length. The Patches is also worth a drift for flathead. Jim Bolakis took a surprise catch fishing at Bare Island. He had a whole squid out as bait in the hope of tempting a big jewfish or kingfish that might have been in the vicinity. Something took the bait but didn’t run like a king or jew. When he finally got it to the rocks it turned out to be a 11kg groper. Watts Reef has started to fire for the bream anglers. Being relatively shallow water it is best fished at night. Greg Mercedes and John Solenko have had two sessions there for a total of 75 bream. Most of the fish have been just keeper size with the best going 1.1kg. Geoff Barr, the blackfish wizard, has been braining the blackfish in the Georges River. He has been teaming up with Les King or Brian Yates and they have been catching regular catches of 20 plus fish an outing. Cranbrook, Caravan Head and Mickeys Point have been their favourite haunts. Near the southern end of the Taren Point Bridge, land based anglers have been catching bream and some big whiting using bloodworms for bait. Blackfish are being caught around the pylons of the bridge with the first pylon from the northern end the hot spot. School jewfish are being caught up the top end of the river with fish to 3kg caught about 100m downstream from the Milperra Bridge. They have also been catching a few on Mr Twister lures under the M5 Bridge. OFFSHORE The bonito are so thick offshore that they are almost becoming a nuisance. You anchor up on a close reef in the hope of catching a few reddies and you can’t get a bait past the bonnies. Lots of trevally on the reefs now too. Peter Corley and Jim Patterson got their bag limits fishing at the Osborne Shoals in Bate bay. East and West Reef in Broken Bay are also lousy with them. Pop-Eye Lloyd and his son drifted Merries Reef, opposite the stink pipes, for a catch of 10 snapper to 3.5kg and some trevally. Long Reef has snapper up to 4kg. Johny Dalbora boated 8 snapper to 2kg, a 6kg groper, a 3.5kg kingfish, plus some morwong and bream fishing about 2kms offshore. The charter boats fishing wider have found snapper, teraglin and morwong. The 40 fathom line off Stanwell Park has been fishing well as has the Esmerelda Reef off Broken Bay. The big green toads are causing some problems nipping lines with consequent loss of terminal tackle and sometimes a considerable amount of line. Thankfully they usually don’t hang around too long. ROCK & BEACH It’s time to get out the drummer gear. We have had a couple of spells of big seas stirring up the coast line and the quieter times in between have seen some top catches taken in the washes. Bill Karayannis, from the South Sydney Amateur Fishing Club, had a very successful outing to South Maroubra where he caught his bag limit of drummer up to 3kg, 12 blackfish and a 7kg groper. He was using peeled prawns and bread for bait. North Bondi, Clovelly and the Mahon Pool are other spots worth a try on the south side. On the north side of the Harbour you could try Warriewood, Avalon, Long Reef and North Head. North Head is only recommended for the serious rock climber. A very unlucky snapper was caught from the rocks at Mona Vale. The line broke as the angler was trying to lift the fish out of the water. The fish floated away on the surface and after half an hour of casting lures the angler managed to jag the fish and get it back to the rocks. It weighed 5.6kg. Mick Speer fished unweighted baits from the rocks at Newport for a feed of bream. He did say he lost a lot of baits to Long Toms. John and Alan Hedervain have been scoring bream and whiting from the northern end of Bondi Beach, although John did say the whiting are getting a bit smaller. Maroubra Beach also has bream and whiting at the northern end and they have been catching salmon at the southern end just on daylight.