Sydney North

SYDNEY NTH Steve Winser

With water in the harbour and nearshore being around 15-17°C, and clear as a bell, the winter time fishing has been in full swing. Once again though, consistent south blow-ups have made it necessary to hit it when you can.

In the harbour, there have been two different types of schools of kings – either schools of rats in the 60cm range, or solid 1m+ models. Again, fresh squid has been the key to getting good catches. The squid have been patchy some days and on fire the next, with most being taken over the ribbon weed, with some stonkers amongst them. The run-out tide has been working the best for us, and fishing the edges and structure is a good way to get results. We have been using jigs in the 2.5 to 3.5 size range. You can use any colour you want… as long as it’s orange or green!

The shallow water harbour fishing has produced the best bream and blackfish fishing I’ve seen in a long time, with catches of 20 or better commonplace. We have been doing well fishing bread baits under small corks in a bread berley trail, with 8lb leaders and no. 8 suicide hooks.

Hordes of trevally marauding these waters have made it difficult some days to get the gear down to the species you’re after.

The wash fishing, as to be expected, has been on fire lately. We have been enjoying great sessions on solid black drummer in numbers, with some brutal smashings from XXL size blue groper. On one recent trip, we had an estimated 12-15kg blue groper almost within range of the landing net, before it won the fight due to the handle busting off a BG 5000. Not happy, Jan.

We have been mainly targeting the groper on my king outfits, which are 10,000 Saragosas with 50lb braid and leaders, baited with crab baits. The drummer have been coming on bread baits fished in a bread berley trail, with 30lb leaders on 30lb braid and 8ft rods.

Next month should see a continuation of the great shallow water harbour and wash fishing. The kings should start to push more into the upper reaches in the coming weeks. It’s difficult to say exactly when though, Ben with a kingfish from the lower reaches.

Eric with a blackfish caught wash fishing.

as they should have already done so by now. They have been hanging round the lower reaches for longer than expected, and this relentless La Niña weather pattern is making predictions more of a challenge. • 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.

From page 56 but you had better be there at the right time because the bite won’t last long. You can encounter some sand flathead and the odd bream as well. Curl Curl Beach is holding all of these species, providing the seaward gutters are there and the seas are less than 1.5m. At the other end of the scale, when the swell is too flat, they can be hard to find because of the lack

Dennis Leung, Fred Tang and Tim Lim hold up their first rock blackfish and silver drummer. rocks, Dobroyd Head and the inside of South Head on the calm side in the harbour are good spots, yielding some luderick as well.

The coldest months are nearly behind us but the coldest waters are not. For this reason, I suggest targeting the winter species like trevally, luderick, groper, rock blackfish, salmon, and even snapper. There are plenty of choices. I enjoy fishing for all of these species, and they involve all separate challenges which makes it interesting. • 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.

of structure. When fishing off south Curl Curl pool you’ll find there is normally a gutter there. There should be some bait fish and predators like Aussie salmon, bream and some trevally to follow.

ESTUARY FISHING

The luderick have been on the chew of late, with bags of up to 15 fish to 1kg. The harbour rock shore and jetties and wharves are producing. While fishing some of these wharves/jetties you will note that it is deep water. A fixed float may not cut it, because the depth you need to fish can be above the length of a rod in that really deep water. The solution is a sliding float with a wind-on float stopper. You can vary the depth that you are fishing by sliding the stopper further up the line. If the luderick are 4-6m deep you can easily fish that depth by letting out more line until your float keeps sliding up to the float stopper.

Remember the amount of lead weight for your rig is subject to how much wind and current there is at the location on the day.

I recommend using hair weed and weed/sand berley to concentrate the fish at your location. Balmoral wharf and Clifton Gardens wharf are amongst some of the good wharves/jetties to try. Off the

Sales • Service • Repairs Dinghies • Tenders Boating Accessories