Weekly Report 21/05/07

Nick the bus driver and his mates ventured out onto the Port Hacking on Friday in all that rain and wind. I was going, but I had to work. Nick managed to get an 880 gram bream while fishing the 35 metres drop-off at Lilly Pilly on the run-up tide. During the week I have a couple of reports come in from Ken who also fished the drop-off on the run-up tide. Ken managed to catch 2 yellowfin bream, 1 dusky flathead to 49cm and 6 silver trevally. All were caught on pilly tails.

Scotty Lyons and his good mate Glen headed out on Tuesday afternoon for a spot of luderick fishing in the deep waters of Yowie Bay in the Port Hacking River. After berleying for a few minutes Scotty hooked onto a solid fish that managed to brick him on the bottom. This same thing then happened to Glen. The next three downs saw them both hook into some solid luderick. Glen got another massive hit and a run. The fish was not a luderick, but is was a surgeon fish. In our new DVD “Port Hacking - The Jewel of the South” Scotty fights and lands a great surgeon fish and boy do they test out your luderick gear. They are also great on the plate.

At the moment the Port Hacking is holding a number of luderick, leatherjackets and squid. Try locating where the sand meets the weed beds and you will be in with a shot. For the leatherjackets and luderick you will need to have a small, but constant berley tail going.

The kingfish have slowed down a little bit in Botany Bay, but it is still worth the effort in putting out a live bait for one of them. Try fishing from the start of Silver Beach and through to the boat ramp at the end. This stretch of water has been producing luderick off the groynes and dusky flathead in and around the weed beds. There have also been a number of squid about as well.

Tailor, silver trevally and the odd Australian salmon have been trolled up on 6 inch Bass Assassin stick baits. Try trolling them at about 2 to 3 knots on TT Jig Heads. Offshore the close reefs have been lousy with small chinaman leatherjackets.

If you like fishing the shore in Sydney Harbour you could try Lady Jane Beach, Mrs Macquarie Chair and under the Harbour bridge for bream, trevally and tailor.

Paul Martin from South West Rock Marine (rocksmarine@tsn.cc) reports that most of his customers have had a quiet week with the conditions a little ordinary at the end of last week for the outside fisho’s. The guys fishing off Scott’s Head in about 60 meters are getting quality snapper and pearl perch, while Dennis Morton found the right spot for a few mulloway. Cobia have slowed down with just the odd one coming in from Fish Rock. This area is also producing a few kingfish, but there are no monsters amongst them.

There has been the odd straggler Spottie off Grassy, but most of them have all but gone. Once again live bait is hard to get around the buoys and the boulders. The tailor run should start soon, but Paul informs me that there are huge numbers around Crescent Head and Point Plummer. Hopefully they are on their way north. There are also reports of kilo plus yellowfin bream swimming with them.
A little closer to home local Phil Saul caught his biggest land based fish, a 24 kilo Cobia out of his secret location between the Rocks and Hat Head on a 65gm Raider metal. Off our ledges there have been a few tailor about with heaps of dart being caught. Bream are starting to come in the river with the best results for bigger fish coming in at night. Flathead are around in fair numbers but most are just legal fish. If you are fishing the Breakwalls Estuary Perch are around everywhere but don’t forget these must be released. Black fish are a little slow coming in this season but as always they will be here.