Julie/Graeme, Anglers Warehouse Tweed Heads (07) 5536 3822
anglerswarehouse@shopsafe.com.au
Wayne, Kingscliff Bait and Tackle
Matthew/Charlie, Deep Sea Fishing Charters

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Offshore: Plenty of mackerel up around Brunswick and a few in the bay.
Beaches, rocks: Some giant tailor around the cape on . Very big whiting and the usual dart, bream and flathead from nearly all of the beaches. Lots of spotted hind (reticulated sweetlips) off the rocks.

David Keevers, Coastal Fishing Tackle 02 66 857 133

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Bruce from Dave’s Bait Shop says bream are good in the lower river on the rising tide with some good fish among the runts. Flathead from the Porpoise Wall to the ferry. The odd whiting as well in the lower estuary and North Creek. Blackfish numbers improving but weed is a problem so try a yabby in the dirty water. Mud crabs going well in the river and creeks.
Tailor improving along the beaches with a few jewfish spun up around the walls.
Quality snapper and samson on the wider reefs with the odd spotted and Spanish mackerel on the closer reefs.
At Evans Head the mackerel have improved offshore, mainly down towards the South Reef, and a few snapper have turned up on the close grounds early of a morning. Some school jew and fat bream being caught around the headlands and a few up Airforce/Broadwater beach way. Also a few nice whiting on the beaches. Plenty of blackfish around the walls with weed better than cabbage. Small bream, whiting and the odd flathead in the river.

Dave’s Bait Shop 02 6686 2481
&
Tony Zann

t.zann@fishingmonthly.com.au

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Not a huge week on the fishing scene here. The early morning tide is making some good clear water up the river a little way now so it may be the end of dirty water for a while. There is a lot of push on the out tide, though, and this means there is still a lot of dirty water influence from upstream. I am quietly confident that we will have a reasonably good Easter period for fishing. There are some bream from Maclean down now, taking baits, lures and plastics. There's been quite a few school jew in the system and bigger fish off the breakwalls at night.
Offshore will come back from today as I see a great number heading to sea this morning (Friday) as I was out walking. The north side would be the best side to fish off the stones for a few more days given that there is still dirty water coming out of the system on the low.

Glen Porter, 6646 2017
The Bait Place 6646 2017
ports@reeltime.com.au

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No report, too busy moving shop.

Peter Russell, Fish Tackle Australia 6652 4611
motackle@midcoast.com.au

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Mark and Denise Bird and Paul and Michelle Martin
Rocks Marine Bait and Tackle 6566 6726
rocksmarine@dodo.com.au

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On the beaches, action has been excellent and hopefully a good omen for the upcoming season. Lighthouse beach has produced good numbers of whiting as well as a few solid bream, whilst Rainbow and North Haven, and to a lesser degree North Beach, have all produced good tailor. On the jew front, North Beach and around Lake Cathie have given an improved showing, which bodes well for the more favourable tides over this next week.
Off the rocks, a few solid tailor have been reported but catches have been a little spasmodic over the past few days. Bream and blackfish numbers remain reasonable, but no real reports of pigs as yet, apart from the odd sneaky fish extracted from around Shelleys and Miners. At long last we are beginning to hear a few more encouraging northern bluefin encounters, with ledges around South West Rocks and Hat Head producing enough action to warrant a trip for those that way inclined. Point Perpendicular could be well worth a go also.
Offshore angling has also had its moments but access has been a day-to-day proposition of late. John from Ocean Star reports several good catches, including plenty of snapper and pearl perch, as well as a few nice jew to around 20 kilos. A few reports of cobia have also come from Barries Bay. John’s clients have also enjoyed a few solid sessions on mahi mahi to around 6kg but one decent session last weekend came to an abrupt end when a pod of false killer whales muscled in on the action. Obviously the action dropped off when this happened, however all clients on board enjoyed what is a once-in-a-lifetime spectacle.
In the estuary, the dirty water following recent downpours has livened up the bream fishing, with some quality fish taken from both the breakwalls, Limeburners Creek and around Settlement Point. A few solid jewies were also taken from local breakwalls, with the North Walls at Port and Camden Haven faring best. Most of the better fish were extracted on lures and by all reports far more fish were lost than actually landed. Full marks to Chris Garrett and Casey Harrison whom we could not separate for the current lead in the Fish of the Year competition. Flathead on the have been somewhat quiet although Lake Cathie is producing well in lower end, while blackfish eagerly accepted the mystical black weed from the co-op during the height of the fresh.
Lake Cathie is continuing to produce great catches of prawns. While the schoolies continue to be of excellent size and quantity, it’s those huge tiger prawns which are the all the talk. These are in the main well in excess of six inches long and most prawners, whether using scoops or drag nets, are managing to pick up quite a few each night, including a few reports of a couple of kilos or more of tigers alone. Great stuff while it lasts but usually these large prawns return to the ocean quite soon after entering the estuaries to spawn. They were trapped this year by the timing of the lake’s closure. Make the most while it lasts, as chances are it will be quite some time until a similar run is enjoyed. Stacks of blue swimmers are still in lower reaches but many are undersize or are jennies in berry, which must be returned to the water.

Jason and Virginia Isaac, Ned Kelly’s Bait and Tackle 6583 8318
cjisaac@ozemail.com.au

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Offshore: Water in close remains off-colour due to recent rain. This is mainly a surface effect as the fishing on the bottom continues to fire. The Pinnacle is again producing small to medium mulloway and a few reds. Five Mile is the place to be with reports coming in of kingfish, samson fish, amberjack, snapper, pearl perch, trag, morwong and an occasional mulloway. Sharks remain common. Cobia are in the area but remain elusive.
Beaches: Tides for this weekend will see all beaches fishing at their best. Tailor continue to improve as do the bream. Whiting are still being caught on Tuncurry Beach.
Rocks: LBG addicts are sick of feeding their baits to Bonito, mack tuna and Tailor. No northern bluefin tuna in this part of the world. Drummer and bream are in numbers in and around Cape Hawke, with cunjevoi as good a bait as any.
Estuary: Two captures of note this week, the first a 123cm flathead (released in good condition) and the second a 61cm bream weighing 2.5kg. I've been promised a photo of this fish which I will pass onto Seamo for publication in an upcoming edition of Fishing Monthly. Mulloway have been quiet in the main channel but not so the sharks after dark. The lake generally is starting to clean up following recent rain. Flathead and bream fishing is good.

Lloyd Campbell, Great Lakes Tackle 02 6554 9541

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Estuary: Still a bit of fresh coming through. Good flathead baggies Beach, shoal bay, corrie Island. School jew on the breakwalls, bream from the racks and some northern bluefin cruising through the bay.
Rocks: Luderick on Birubi, Cemetery, snapper Boat harbour, fishermans. Bluefin on Tomaree platform. Plenty of squid in most bays. Good tailor at dawn and dusk.
Beaches: Jew on Stockton, tailor, whiting and bream as well on most beaches.
Offshore: Marlin out wide in 80 fathoms. Snapper in the Broughton shallows, Big island washes. Trag on the Gibber, The Tank. Flathead on the drift north of Broughton. A few cobia around Yacaaba. Kingies East Head.

Graham Duffy, Salamander Bait and Tackle 02 4982 0711

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April is one of my favourite months to fish in our local area and we are very lucky as most options usually produce. It’s all on, from the beaches and rocks targeting bream, tailor and whiting to offshore action hunting surface fish like bonito and kingfish, or flathead and snapper on the bottom, to our estuaries for travelling bream and luderick as well as our freshwater streams and impoundments for bass and trout .
Reports from Lake Macquarie reveal that squire and bream are being caught throughout the lake with Chris Russell doing well on the soft plastics from the northern end and others landing good numbers from the Pulbah Island area on fish baits. Blacksmiths Beach is continuing to produce the better of the tailor around with good numbers of sizeable fish caught this week on ganged pilchards. Squid are still available from the Channel.
Newcastle Harbour is offering some good flathead fishing with the Basin and Carrington areas surrendering a lot of large duskies. The quality of the bream is exceptional. Ron Ashman and I fished the harbour`s structures this week using hard-bodied and soft plastic lures to account for 16 legal fish in three hours as well as many lost lures from the unstoppables. Mulloway reports continue with many captures being from surprised fishos targeting flathead or bream.
The third round of the NSW Pro Bass will be held on the Hawkesbury and Colo rivers this weekend. For more information on this catch and release bass tournament contact Chris Craig on 02 49 733 373 Our local impoundments have continued to fire with Lake St Clair and, to a lesser extent, Glenbawn producing bass on spinnerbaits in the shallower regions or on rattling lipless lures. These lures really work and are coming back into fashion with the imported Jackals costly but the best around. More fishos are also reporting good catches of silver perch with fish up to a kilo coming from St Clair.
Local nursery owner Matt Kelly collected $500 prizemoney for the capture of the largest bream (1.58 kg) in the ABT BREAM round on the Hawkesbury last weekend.

Jordan Armstrong,
Tackle Power Fishing Stores,
Jordan@tacklepower.com.au

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Peter Sanderson, Fisherman's Warehouse (02) 4945 8922
enquiries@fishermanswarehouse.com.au

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Offshore fishing improved this week both on the deep reefs and also on the shallow grounds. Those boats that made the big run out to the perch grounds were rewarded with some solid perch, the current was slight and running uphill and the north easterly winds made for uncomfortable fishing but the perch continued to bite. Some boats also reported catching some quality kingfish as well

Gary Oxley Coastline Bait & Tackle, East Gosford ph/fax 4325 4255
kathgaz@bigpond.com
http://www.coastlinefishing.easysites.ws

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Darren Thomas
Fish Outta Water 9949 9488
fishon@uunet.com.au

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Mako Tackle
Gary Brown / Greg Mercedes 9600 6999

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Garth, Deans Bait and Tackle, Windang 4295 1615

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Outside: there are still a few marlin getting about. Nick from Reel Class scored six the other day for his American clients. The snapper have slowed down for the boaties as the fish are generally in close to the stones at this time of year. Kingfish seem to be making up most of the catch along with hundreds of salmon.
Rocks, beaches: it’s a good time of year to catch jew from the beach and there has been the odd jew story filtering through. Plenty of salmon, tailor and whiting on the beaches with bream generally in the corners next to the headlands. Lots of reports from the boys catching snapper from the rocks and plenty of pigs getting about if the reds go quiet. But take plenty of hooks as the run of sharks at the moment is quite thick. A mate and I went through about 30 hooks the other day and landed one shark, about 15 salmon and a couple of big bream and trevally in about two hours.

Rodney Stockman,
Harry’s Bait and Tackle
ph 02 4472 4393, fax 02 4472 3405

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Estuaries fishing well for jewies and some good snapper, plenty of bream and flatties. Lure-chuckers are succeeding on greens and darker brown. Whiting on the sandflats. Good trevally and bream in the channel.
Beaches: Salmon, tailor and whiting going quite well on most beaches.
Offshore: Bonito everywhere around Montague with some good kings but it’s hard to get through the bonnies. Out wide a few yellowfin in patches and a few marling also working well.

Darryl, The Ocean Hut 4476 2278

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Darren Redman and Mark Rose,
Bermagui Ocean Hut and Charter Booking Service, 6493 4688

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