Central Coast

CENTRAL COAST

Jamie

Robley Welcome to another new year, and hopefully it will a bit drier one than the previous few. There’s an old saying that goes, “be careful what you wish for”, meaning that sometimes our Lake Macquarie, and like many of my biggest bream in recent years, it fell to a black Ecogear ZX30.

Aside from vibe lures, I would mainly be recommending surface lures this month, fished early in the morning or later in the afternoon, towards sunset. If you prefer to sit back and has always been a popular prawning area through summer, but a warning to those who may haven’t been to the area for a few years, or who are new to scooping for prawns: the current here is much stronger now than it has been for possibly a few decades. So when wading out into the shallows, be super careful not to wade too far into the deeper sections or you could be swept away with the current. On the bigger tides it’s been really ripping through here, especially down towards the mouth.

Beach fishing has been stable in recent weeks, with a mixed lot of species. A few salmon have lingered around and could still be possible this month. Normally though, we see numbers of small to medium size tailor during January.

A few decent jewfish have also been caught on the bigger beaches here recently, so if you’re heading here for a holiday bring the heavier tackle and try to track down some good fresh squid, mullet or tailor for bait. If you’re fishing at night and catch a few tailor, don’t waste their heads. A fresh tailor head is a first-rate mulloway bait at the beach!

Through the daylight hours, expect whiting, bream and the occasional flathead this month. Bream will take a wide variety of baits, but fresh is always best. Whiting much prefer beach worms, but will also fall for peel prawns, pipi or blood worm baits. If you’re

It’s a great time of year for local estuary fishing. The author has been catching bream all over the place in recent weeks.

The author’s best bream for 2022 was this 47cm fork length specimen from the southern end of Lake Macquarie. It was released after a photo. Beach fishing can be productive during January. Tailor are the main target, but bream, whiting, flathead and mulloway are all liable to turn up.

wishes can backfire on us in a way. So, let’s hope it’s just a bit drier this year, not too dry!

Our lakes and Brisbane Waters fished quite well in the closing stages of last year, which is normally the case when things warm up. I’ve been finding numbers of smaller bream in the Tuggerah system, with less numbers and bigger sizes around Gosford, Woy Woy and the southern end of Lake Macquarie. Like most of my bream these days, they mainly fall victim to small vibes and surface lures. My best of the year was a 47cm fork length bream from relax with a bait out, try it more so around sunrise, sunset or at night. Don’t cast baits way out into deeper water, because during the height of summer bream much prefer the shallows, and by that I mean depths around 30-60cm. By using fresh bait at night and dropping baits in the shallow water close to shore you’re definitely in with an excellent chance of good bream, flathead and whiting. Fishing at night is also a good idea to avoid holiday crowds at this time of year.

Prawns and crabs are other good options worth doing this month. The Entrance planning to do a bit of daytime beach fishing, I would highly recommend doing it in the morning, not the afternoon. Simple reason is because the middle of summer here also means strong northeasterly winds and they commonly pick up strength after midday. The same advice goes out to anyone planning some rock fishing or heading out offshore. ‘Early’ is the keyword this month. A strong north-easterly wind makes launching and retrieving very difficult at Norah Head, although it’s not so bad at Terrigal. However, no matter where you’re launching from this month, good weather means there will also be plenty of other boats heading out. The earlier you launch, the easier things will be – and the fishing is better early too.

January is one of our best months for fishing, but at the same time, it can be a bit problematic because of the wind and crowds. My biggest and best advice for all anglers is to fish early or at night, and try to find your own little spot away from the masses. This month fish can be very widespread around our local waterways, so just because you don’t see anyone fishing at a particular spot doesn’t mean there aren’t any fish there!

Stocking