Snapper, flatties and bream

Hello all and welcome to the new year.

I trust you all had a great Christmas and a safe and happy new year break.

The fishing around the Northern Rivers has been quite good in recent months.

Some cleaner than usual water and warm weather have both contributed to this in a significant way.

The only concerns will be if we have major rain events or east coast lows between now and Easter – the typical time of the year for these to occur.

Offshore, over the past month or so, the current has been ripping down the hill, making fishing most of the wider grounds a real challenge.

Still, good kingfish have come from the 48-fathom line and beyond, with most of the better fish nailing knife jigs in the 300400g range.

Pearl perch were found in a similar area but were a little harder to target due to the heavy current over summer.

A number of anglers managed to target a few fish on jigs, lately though bait was far better at grabbing their attention.

Quality snapper have shown up in deeper water recently.

Great numbers of snapper have turned up on the 32-fathom line.

This is fairly typical for this time of year and most anglers were using a combination of either octo-style jigs, soft plastics or cut bait.

Colour choice has been fairly mixed and varied, with brighter colours working one day and some more natural colours the next.

For the most part, 7” jerk shads have done the damage, with a 1.5-2oz jig head being the best weight option, given the current.

Both the fish aggregating device and the Waverider buoy have produced some mahi mahi during summer.

Unweighted live or dead bait having accounted for plenty of fish, though some of the larger models were taken using skirted lures being trolled or soft plastic vibes and surface stickbaits.

Mahi mahi seem to have hung around for most of last year, yet it was only in the past couple of months with the warmer current that the better quality fish began to show up.

I’m also fairly confident that we’ll see a run of spotted and spanish mackerel at any tick of the clock, so now is the time to start making some rigs in preparation for their arrival.

Back in the river, we’ve had a great summer, with the water quality excellent and plenty of fish from Wardell Bridge to the mouth.

The bulk of flathead were taken from the mouth of the river to Pimlico Island, and the hot weather had most of the better fish sitting in deeper channels to beat the heat.

Mullet, prawns and pilchard have all had some success recently on flatties, along with brighter coloured blades and soft plastics.

As is usually the case, the run-out tide was a little more productive for most anglers, especially if it was in the afternoon.

It was a similar story with mangrove jack as far as time and tide were concerned, however they were in better numbers further upriver.

Zac with a quality bass he caught using a soft plastic.

Broadwater to the ferry was the better part of the river to target them, with a number of fish also popping up in North Creek.

Lately, whiting have been a little disappointing, with a few fish caught on bait during a larger run-in tide and surface lures on the run-out.

I was expecting this summer to be quite good for whiting, but as yet this species hasn’t lived up to expectations.

Let’s hope the back half of summer is better than the first.

Numbers of bream have been fairly consistent so far.

Bait such as prawns, mullet, worms and herring have all been productive over the past few weeks.

Some better quality fish were landed using very lightly weighted soft plastics, with minnow or prawn imitations working the best.

Further upriver, we’ve had a good season on bass in both the Richmond and Wilson rivers.

Frog and cicada imitations both worked well early morning and late afternoon, however during the heat of the day, there were times when spinnerbaits and chatterbaits were very effective options.

Given that we haven’t had buckets of rain, the river is fairly clean, so the more natural colours with silver blades have been the best combo.

Around midday, throwing a few skirted jigs about has paid off too.

Any colour – as long as it’s mostly black – has regularly tempted the fish, yet if the dry weather continues, it may pay to be a little more adventurous with your colour choice.

Well, that’s about all from me for this first edition of the year.

Until next month, tight lines!