Fishing Monthly - Latest Fishing Reports

These reports are updated weekly.
Last Edited: Friday, 20 August 2004

Quick Jump Links:
Byron Bay, Ballina, Yamba, Coffs Harbour.
South West Rocks, Port Macquarie,
Forster, Port Stephens, Hunter Area,
Newcastle, Central Coast, Sydney Northern.
Sydney Southern, Wollongong,
Batemans Bay, Narooma, Bermagui.
Archived Reports, Weather & Tides.

COMPILED WEEKLY BY TONY ZANN IN EVANS HEAD:
e-mail: t.zann@fishingmonthly.com.au

Tweed Heads

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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Brunswick Heads

Outside: Snapper local reef
Rock & beach: Tailor local beaches.Tailor & Bream north & south walls.
River Black Fish on all the river walls bream around boat harbor & the traffic bridge at simpsons creek whiting up river, jew fish as well up to wades mullumbimby in the deeper holes

Joe

Craig Wraight
BP Discount Fishing Tackle, Brunswick Heads
ausie_28_red@yahoo.com.au
Phone (02) 66851268

Byron Bay

David Keevers, Coastal Fishing Tackle 02 66 857 133

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Ballina

Dave’s Bait Shop 02 6686 2481
&
Tony Zann

t.zann@fishingmonthly.com.au

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Yamba

A bit of colour on the Middle Wall for a few days as a school of luderick arrived. Got a mate here who has been turning a few (and I mean just a few) good bream off the same wall on plastics.
Cabbage is good for the blackfish but some good green weed about but I want to emphasise that there are not a lot of fish and the best anglers will only score a few fish. Good tailor about in the early am both north and south.
The jew boys are working the walls with live baits (flattails) and I see a few good sized scales on the deck so they are scoring, always of a night. The creek is pretty quiet other than that but offshore is fishing consistently.

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

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Coffs Harbour

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

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South West Rocks

Finally we have had a bit of rain, not much of it, but badly needed rain anyway. Hopefully there has been enough to improve the fishing especially in the river.
There are a few fish in the river at the moment. Bream are about with some nice ones coming in along the river walls, but once again late afternoon and into the night is best. Fishing the North Wall, Coxes Wharf and along the Cut should get you some Blackfish and if you are land based try the Wire Fence or around Jew Bite. Flat Head are still being picked up towards Stuarts Point on the run out tide. There has been a few small Jewfish about with around the Jerseyville Bridge your best bet.
It does seem that the beaches are improving with good catches reported. Bream have been caught along Smokey Beach, the hardest part is finding a nice gutter. Tailor have also been there for morning and afternoon sessions. Gap Beach is starting to fire with nice Bream coming out of this location. Salmon are being caught on Back Beach up to a few kilos each; great fun if you hook one of these on light gear while you are fishing for Bream. Front Beach has been a little quiet apart from some small Bream.
Fishing off the rocks has been rewarding with some nice Tailor still hanging around. Bream in good numbers are coming out from the Jail down past the Gutter to the Light House. Salmon are also there chasing your bait. Drummer are still about, ready to test your gear.
The Ocean has been up for the most of last week making it tough to get current reports. Fish rock has been fishing well for nice Reds, mainly around the back of the rock. (Just remember you can’t anchor and fish with bait here, you must drift). King Fish are at the rock as well, a lot of smaller ones at the moment but there are some brutes amongst them. Reports from up North have been slow due to the conditions so I will run with last weeks reports of Snapper along the 120 to 130 foot reefs from Grassey Head to Scotts and Nambucca.
The Leather Jackets are still around, mainly schooling from in front of the Jail and down south.
If you are fishing outside don’t forget to check your safety gear and log on and off with the good guy’s at the Coastal Patrol.

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

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Port Macquarie

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

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Forster

Offshore - A reasonable weekend of weather looks likely and there will be many offshore fisho's keen to take advantage of it. Last Saturday morning provided a local charter boat a few hours outside between wind changes. That boat fished a small patch of reef less than two kms offshore and hit the jackpot with Reds averaging two kg and Pearl Perch not far behind. The rest of the week just gone has been a right-off.
Beaches - The only certainty at the moment are Salmon.

Rocks - The Drummer and Blackfish continue on in good numbers and size. Whilst Ab Gut is good for the Drummer, Cunjoi seems to be more consistent in the Pacific Palms area where there are still some quality Bream to be had as by-catch.

Estuary - More schools of traveling Blackfish moved into the lake over the last few days. Fishing under the bridge on the Tuncurry side is still the place to pick up the bigger Bream and Blackfish. A few large Flathead are being reported on sand flats around the bridge. Plenty of people covering a lot of water in search of Bream on lures. The Wallamba River seems to be as good a place as any to drown a soft plastic.

Lloyd Campbell, Great Lakes Tackle 02 6554 9541

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Port Stephens

Graham Duffy, Salamander Bait and Tackle 02 4982 0711

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Hunter Area

August this year is already living up to the tag of the windy month with another weekend of strong westerly restricting anglers to the sheltered bays, rock shelves and creeks to get their fishing fix. Local rock fishers are still catching a good mix of fish with some nice black drummer (rock blackfish) and groper being caught from the Catherine hill bay shelves and also from the redhead / dudley area which can also offer small snapper, trevally, luderick and at this moment large numbers of leatherjackets. These school`s of jackets have plagued the offshore fisho`s for the last couple of months and can be caught using peeled prawn baits on small hooks but wire traces are recommended.

Lake Macquarie remains a good option for tailor with schools of fish being found in the lakes southern regions but the better fish are caught by those willing to troll down deep using either deep diving lures or being assisted by the use of a down rigger. Squire and some large flathead are also being caught using the larger soft plastic lures on heavily weighted jigheads so that they can be kept close to the bottom in around 20 foot of water with one lucky anglers landing a 15 kilo mulloway last week while targeting flathead in the lake.

The final round of the ABT Bass series that was set down for Lake St Clair last weekend had to be cancelled due to the high winds with local Muswellbrook angler Andrew Robinson securing the Angler of the Year title for 2004.Apologises to all who missed out on a seat at last weeks Information night with Harry Watson and secret creeks Mick Butcher but Mick has agreed to return soon to answer all your queries and demonstrate these great locally made spinnerbaits.

Two new DVD`s on fishing have arrived in your local tackle store this week with the ever popular AFC Bream Pro series, held earlier this year and shown nationally on TV, coming out as well as "Jewfish Secrets" a superb technical DVD on fishing for jewies by well known charter operator Greg Joyes.

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

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Newcastle

G'day G'day G'day and welcome to the second installment of the Peterless weekend fishing report. Well as promised this week we will start with an update on the current state of play in the Broughton island yearly trek. the punishing pete update
THE BROUGHTON ISLAND FILLET AND RELEASE TOUR OF 2004
The boys left on Saturday with a 45 knot s/westerly greeting them and after a somewhat horrendous journey in the dark they safely arrived at the island about 7pm. As is normally the case when Pete heads to Broughton the weather on the first day prevented any fishing at all. They finally got a fish in on Tuesday morning after a slow start they found some fish about lunch time and in a frantic hour or so headed back to the island with 12 snapper. the biggest fish being 3.9kg and the smallest being just over 1kg. a good session by any standards. one of the other boats in their party had a snapper of 4.2 kg great fish. Again on Wednesday the weather (or was the after dinner drinks ?) has prevented them from boat
fishing however the rocks around the island have again saved the day with peter and friends snagging 11 drummer on baits and 1 kingie ,1 salmon on soft plastic lures. so lets hope they get a break in the weather and they can get some serious fishing done and I have got something to bloody well write about next week.

Just to quickly touch on the soft plastics and snapper again I ventured to Broughton on Saturday (yes yes I know it only happens rarely but believe it or not i do fish sometimes) with a couple of friends . although disregarding the weather forecast (shhh I know it was stupid) of 35 knot n/w we found the morning windless and the ocean as flat as a tack. The first fish of the morning was a 8.5kg snapper we then went on to catch another 9 reds for the day and being my first time seriously targeting snapper on soft plastics I am pretty rapt to say I caught 4 of them we were on the water at 6.30 am and off it by 12.00pm. you may ask why such a short session when the fish were on the chew and we had traveled all the way to Broughton? as I said previously it is stupid to ignore weather forecasts as the n/w forecast became the same s/west 45knot wind that greeted peter. And yes the soft plastics are all they are cracked up to be and is a fantastic and most enjoyable way to catch fish and believe me not as hard as most people think in fact with a little bit of advice is down right easy (I mean come on if I can catch fish on them any body can)

OK enough about Broughton island and snapper what else is going on ? Its been bloody raining all week and there is nothing to report because no one is fishing see ya

All right its not that bad and we need the rain so lets see if we can help you lot find some fish this weekend.(now is probably a good time to mention that we currently have 25% off all our wet weather gear . good plug ay) anyway what this rain will do is stir up the fishing a lot. Fish such as blackfish love dirty stirred up water with a bit of fresh in it. Although it seems as if you need to be a rocket scientist to work out how to catch them it really is not that complicated the biggest consideration with blackfish is that you use light line and have your float weighted right so it takes very little effort on the fishes part to sink it . Use a good fresh green weed or cabbage (cabbage is readily available off the ocean rocks and looks like small cabbage leaves hence the name) good places to try are off lucies breakwall or around the entrance to Dora creek . if the weather allows it the ocean rocks will produce good blackfish in this type of weather.
The rain will also improve the bream fishing out of sight as I believe (only my opinion) that the main reason for the lack of bream recently has been the crystal clear water in the lake over the past month or so .
Bream (as we all no ) are an extremely shy fish and do not like still clear conditions so with this rain, a bit of mullet gut or tuna fillet and some willing fishermen ( sorry ladies, fisher-people) we should start to get the reports of bream that we should be getting at this time of year.

Another favourite of the estuary the old flathead has made a few appearances this week with some nice fish to 2kgs coming from the southern end of the lake on lures. so there is no reason why we should not be able to pick a few up on either lures or baits.

After giving them a good write up last week the reports from the whiting front have been few and far between but this could have as much to do with the weather as it has to do with the fish (or it could just be because I gave them a rap and want to make a fool of me which aint hard to do ) there should still be some around so get out there and have a go

With the swell tipped to be from the south late in the week and weekend this presents a good chance to get amongst the squid at the heads with the island stopping the southerly swell the heads area should be flat and calm and there have been a lot of large calamari squid out there. Use a size 4 squid jig in either blue or pink and drift whilst jigging easy and a great feed to boot

There are good numbers of fish still outside with redhead producing some nice reds and Taylor Catho is again plagued with salmon there is however some good Taylor with them and the odd king Bottom bashing out wide continues to produce good snapper and pearl perch while the kingies are still there (has anybody tried jigging them yet let me know) The more rain we get the better the fishing in close will become with the dirty runoff bring much lees cautious fish in close The rain will also stir up the big silver stink bags ( jewfish) so get out there with some big baits or some oversized soft plastics

Weather
The weather forecast for the weekend is for offshore winds 10/20 knots and the rain clearing on Friday (however as we have learnt from earlier in this report do not ignore forecasts and always check the up to date forecasts )

Tides
Sat
high 11.43 am
low 5.51pm
high 11.52pm
Sun
low 6.05am
high12.35pm
low 6.52pm

So there we have it another week another report get out there and get amongst them till next week when i can give you the final Broughton adventure gossip and score cards see ya and have fun

Shane

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

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Central Coast

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

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Sydney Northern

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

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Sydney Southern

Hasn't this drop of rain that we have had in Sydney been great. Not only do the gardens love it, so do the fish. Bream, mulloway and dusky flathead have been caught by those anglers who have been brave enough to sit out in the rain and fish off places like the bridges at Como, Tom Ugly's and the Captian Cook. Best baits have been fresh squid, mullet and chicken gut, strips of mullet and slimy mackerel. Due to the fact that there are a number of snags at these places I would suggest that you try using a paternoster rig. This will not only get you bait off the bottom; it will stop you getting as many snags and those annoying twists in your lines.

If you are after trevally I would suggest that you mainly stick to the cleaner water, as the trevally doesn't like it to be too dirty. Fish as light as the conditions will allow and try using peeled prawns, pink nippers and strips of chicken in parmesan cheese. You could also try filleting a couple of yellowtail, then taking off the skin and then cut into small pieces. I have found this very successful when chasing trevally.

The Hawkesbury River is turning on some very good fishing for both bream and mulloway. I would start at Bar Point near the top of the tide and then fish for the next hour of the run-out. Once the water has started to dirty up a bit I would then start moving down stream with the dirty line.
Maybe you could net then fish the road bridge, rail bridge Juno Point and last but by all means not lease, you could fish at Flint and Steel.

If you are going for a fish in Sydney Harbour you could try the entrance for salmon and tailor, Sow and Pigs for trevally, bream and luderick on the run -up tide and the first of the run-out tide.

The yellow marker on the north side of the entrance to Sydney Harbour would also be worth a look. Salmon have been schooling up in the area.

For those of you that would like to learn more about the art of fishing with plastic and hard body lures you should take the time out to have a look at Top Spin Sports Fishing Charters web site at www.topspinsportfishing.com.au .

What's on?
For the dates of the next fishing class on "How, Where and When to fish the waterways of Sydney from both the shore and the boat "you will need to either call into the shop and ask Greg or you could contact on 0422 994 207 and book in, or maybe the next time you are passing the shop you could go in and book in for the class. The class will cover every thing you need to know to get you amongst a few more fish. The cost for three nights is $80 per person. The areas that I cover in these classes are the Port Hacking, Georges, Woronora, Parramatta, Lane and Iron Cove and the Hawkesbury Rivers, Middle and Sydney Harbours, the northern and southern beaches, as well as the Pittwater.

Mako Tackle
Gary Brown / Greg Mercedes 9600 6999

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Wollongong

Garth, Deans Bait and Tackle, Windang 4295 1615

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Batemans Bay

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

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Narooma

Darryl, The Ocean Hut 4476 2278

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Bermagui

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

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Archived Weekly Reports

Year 2004 Weekly Reports
05/01/2004	09/01/2004	16/01/2004		30/1/2004
06/02/2004	13/02/2004	20/02/2004	27/02/2004
05/03/2004	12/03/2004	19/03/2004	26/3/2004
02/04/2004	08/04/2004	16/04/2004	23/04/2004	30/04/2004
07/05/2004	14/05/2004	21/05/2004	28/05/2004
05/06/2004	11/06/2004	18/06/2004	25/06/2004
02/07/2004	09/07/2004	19/7/2004	23/07/2004	30/07/2004
06/08/2004	13/08/2004

Year 2003 Weekly Reports

07/01/2003

10/01/2003

17/01/2003

24/01/2003

31/01/2003

07/02/2003

14/02/2003

21/02/2003

01/03/2003

07/03/2003

14/03/2003

21/03/2003

28/03/2003

04/04/2003

10/04/2003

17/04/2003

24/04/2003

02/05/2003

09/05/2003

16/05/2003

23/05/2003

30/05/2003

06/06/2003

13/06/2003

20/06/2003

27/06/2003

04/07/2003

11/07/2003

18/07/2003

25/07/2003

01/08/2003

08/08/2003

15/08/2003

22/08/2003

29/08/2003

05/09/2003

12/09/2003

19/09/2003

26/09/2003

03/10/2003

10/10/2003

17/10/2003

24/10/2003

31/10/2003

7/11/2003

14/11/2003

21/11/2003

28/11/2003

5/12/2003 12/12/2003 19/12/2003 29/12/2003

Year 2002 Weekly Reports
04/01/2002	11/01/2002	18/01/2002	25/01/2002
01/02/2002	08/02/2002	15/02/2002	22/02/2002
01/03/2002	08/03/2002	15/03/2002	22/03/2002	29/03/2002
05/04/2002	12/04/2002	19/04/2002	26/04/2002
03/05/2002	10/05/2002	17/05/2002	24/05/2002
01/06/2002	07/06/2002	14/06/2002	21/06/2002	28/06/2002
05/07/2002	12/07/2002	19/07/2002	26/07/2002
02/08/2002	09/08/2002	16/08/2002	23/08/2002	30/8/2002
06/09/2002	13 /09/2002	20/09/2002	27/09/2002
04/10/2002	11/10/2002	18/10/2002	25/10/2002
01/11/2002	8/11/2002	15/11/2002	22/11/2002	29/11/2002
06/12/2002	13/12/2002	20/12/2002		30/12/2002

Year 2001 Weekly Reports
25/1/2001
01/02/2001	08/02/2001	15/02/2001	22/02/2001
02/03/2001	09/03/2001	16/03/2001	23/03/2001	31/03/2001
6/04/2001	12/04/2001	19/04/2001	26/04/2001
3/05/2001	10/05/2001	17/05/2001	24/05/2001	31/05/2001
7/06/2001	14/06/2001	21/06/2001	28/06/2001
5/07/2001	12/07/2001	19/07/2001	26/07/2001
3/08/2001	10/08/2001	17/08/2001	24/08/2001	31/08/2001
7/09/2001	14/09/2001	21/9/2001	28/9/2001
5/10/2001	12/10/2001	19/10/2001	26/10/2001
2/11/2001	9/11/2001	16/11/2001	23/11/2001	30/11/2001
7/12/2001	14/12/2001	21/12/2001	28/12/2001

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