Sydney North

Stellar wash fishing

SYDNEY NTH Steve Winser

With water temperatures still low and weather changing every day, it’s been a tough month, and as we move into December the La Niña pattern will probably be still with us.

The harbour is still producing fish in fits and starts, all depending on whether it’s actually fishable on a given day. The kingfish are still hit-and-miss; the colder water temperature is slowing their metabolism, causing the fish to actively feed only on every second or third day. Plenty of fish are being marked but they’re tough to switch on.

At the time of writing this report, the cold-water stalwarts like bream, blackfish and trevally are still plentiful and easy to catch, and it’s a testament to the low water temps when they’re still going strong in November! Once again, the tops of the tides in the shallow foreshore areas with a bread berley trail will guarantee a feed.

The other cold-water standby, wash fishing, is also continuing its stellar run. Solid black drummer and blue groper are being caught regularly. We fish a rising tide in the afternoon with bread and prawns for the drummer and crabs for the groper.

Emilio’s first blackfish.

From page 60 a population of whiting, but some beaches fish better than others. Try mid Palm Beach near the two massive boulders to the southern corner (it can get very crowded, especially on weekends near southern corner), Mona Vale, Warriewood, North, South Narrabeen, and Dee Why beaches. They all fish well for the above species. ESTUARY

At the time of writing, Narrabeen Lagoon has discoloured water around the beach bridge area because of all the dredging of sand. Try fishing at night near the bridges (Pittwater Road and Ocean Street) for bream, whiting and flathead. There’s a huge range of plastics and hardbodied lures you can use. The Double Clutch and Bait Junkie Grubs are a couple of options that work well. Pink nippers for the whiting or even beach worms work OK too. Live prawns are deadly for all three species.

During the holiday period, the lake is a hive of activity in the daytime. Fishing the evenings, especially late in the evenings, are the go for better results.

In Sydney Harbour, there are kings being caught from Dobroyd and Georges Head. Tailor are being caught early in the morning, and you can catch some squid in the early hours as well. Unfortunately, squid fishing in North Harbour is illegal, but from Middle Harbour onwards it is OK.

To all of the readers I wish you a Merry Christmas and have a Great New Year. • For rock and beach guided fishing or tuition in the northern Sydney region, visit www.bellissimocharters. com.au, email alex@ bellissimocharters.com.au or call Alex Bellissimo on 0408 283 616. A nice big blue for Baz.

Schools of surface fish, mostly salmon and tailor, have moved in, at first in the lower reaches in pretty solid schools and then breaking up and moving towards the upper reaches. They become more difficult to target when the schools are broken up like that. Most of our fish have been coming on Sugapenstyle surface walkers or small 3” plastics.

At this point, due to aforementioned weather patterns, predicting next month will be a tough call. I expect the kings will move into the lower harbour and if we see a rise in water temperatures, they should come on the chew more consistently... fingers crossed!

If the temperatures remain low, the coldwater mainstays of bream, blackfish, trevally, drummer and groper will once again provide good action.

Tight lines everyone! • Fishing Sydney Tours takes pride in tailoring every trip to the customer’s preferred species, style of angling, and level of expertise, all within a friendly and relaxed atmosphere at competitive rates. There are some excellent fishing spots that can be accessed straight off Sydney, and we will show you where. We offer harbour, wash and offshore fishing for species ranging from kingfish and mulloway through to snapper and mahimahi. For more info go to www. fishingsydneytours.com.au, call 0481 120 600 or look up ‘Fishing Sydney Tours’ on Facebook.

Peter with a shallow water bream.