rjc123

Hawkesnest on the north side of Port Stephens. Its got Salmon, Tailor and Jewfish off the beach. Bonito, Tailor, Kingfish and a host of tunas and mackerels (summer) from the rocks. Monster Snapper, Pearl Perch and reefies offshore (as well as multiple species of Marlin). And finally, some great bream, flathead, whiting and jewfish in the estuaries. Reasonably priced accommodation and well worth a look! Cheers, Tom

Hawkesbury definitely work best mate! It may sound weird but Garlic prawns are some of the best bream bait i've come across. Had a dozen left-over one time and decided i'd give them a go. 4 Bream between 31-37cm. Worth a shot! Definitely mate! Bream will happily take a peeled cooked prawn.

Cheers mate! To have it as sashimi do i need to avoid freezing it overnight?

Your best bet at ATB at the moment is bream. Cast unweighted prawns (no sinker required) out and you should get a few. Nothing to stop you throwing a livebait out for hairtail, tailor and jewfish as well! Burley up just before dark and you should be able to get a few yakkas. If you get a legal tailor then that'll make a great livebait too! Good luck!

Roseville Bridge always has thumper Bream at this time of year. Unweighted prawns, pilchard fillet and mullet fillet are ideal. Definitely worth sending a livebait or squid out too for big flathead and jewfish! For the bream, cast to the first pylon from the forestville side. Cheers, Tom

80mm bloodworm wrigglers work for me

That sounds good too mate! Cheers, Tom

Haven't been to Shady Camp but there's some monster barra there! AND CROCS! Another place that the wife might like is corroboree billabong. Great fishing for barra, saratoga and tarpon. Magnificent place! Great photo opportunities too! A guide is required here though. I can give you a name via PM if you like. Cheers, Tom

Currently printing this one!

Great to hear mate! Got no problems with keeping a few but you always feel good to let them go! Cheers, Tom

For what your doing its very easy to go overboard with tackle. I'll try and put together a "rough" list of what you may need as i've done a similar thing before. First of all you need to decide if your a spin reel man or baitcaster. Baitcasters are used more than spin reels up there (mainly in the creeks/rivers) but if you haven't ever used one i wouldn't worry. Ideally grab something like a 6-10kg barra spin shimano raider rod and a 4000 size reel matched with 20-30lb braid. You may think 30lb is a lot to be using in creeks but the fish are right in the structure so you can't afford to much around once they snaffle your bait/lure. This set up should be fine for SP too and could be used for Jews on SP back here in Sydney. The areas you have described are some of the best barra waters in the world. As you mentioned, it's croc galore up there. Keep a few feet away from the water at all times... Some of these places will be hard to fish landbased so i would recommend booking a guide at some point to ensure you get that big barra! Going back to lures, there are many to choose from. My absolute favourite is the gold bomber closely followed by the rapala floating x-rap. Bright colours are recomended as the water is rather discoloured up there. The most important aspect of barra on lures is the retrieve. The most common retrieve is; couple turns of the handle then a double twitch (down) followed by a pause of 2s. The pause is VERY CRUCIAL as it is more often than not when the barra strikes the lure. The better your retrieve, the more fish you'll catch! Make sure you have a few poppers too as the queenies and trevally are outstanding fun on them! The fish go EXTREMELY hard up there so you need to put the brakes on ASAP! Have a great time buddy Good luck!

Couldn't agree more mate! No shortage of bream and trevs at the moment! Haven't nailed a salmon here yet but hopefully it won't be too long!

went 96cm taken on a live tailor in april

Hi mate, It's between the main bridge and the boat ramp. Can't miss it. Got my PB jew here as well earlier this year!

Definitely mate! Especially in summer. Hopefully when i get my Pro Angler 12 i can have a crack at them! Can't wait!

The bank mate. All of the forstville side is going well at the moment Cheers buddy! Its good to have a bit of consistency at the moment!

Bad luck mate! Roseville is really on and off. Had a good session on bream and trevs today but it really varies from day to day. Can't go wrong with a run in tide, a bag of prawns up near the overhead pipe thing! Should be bream, flathead and trevs mainly!

Thanks mate! Crazy difference a few days makes! Sounds like a great recipe! I'll definitely try it out! Cheers, Tom Hi mate, the pontoon is under construction so you can't fish on it. I fished the last 2 hours of the run in tide

Are you sure we're talking about the same place? Roseville in Middle Harbour? By dusted i mean getting busted/broken off on the structure. I'll be sure to cook them up that way!

Hey raiders, had a few hours to kill today so why not head down for a quick fish. Armed with prawns i headed down to a favourite spot at Roseville. Over the next 2 hours i would have landed around 20 fish. Around half the catch was legal being trevally (biggest 36cm) and bream (29cm). The trevally go nicely on the light gear and the bream weren't too bad either. All fish were taken on unweighted prawns fished hard up against the pontoon. The problem was that you get dusted by the bigger bream and trevally... Busted off 3 times today... All in all a productive little session with a nice feed! Kept one 28cm Bream and 2 trevally (34cm and 36cm). I decided to whack the fillets of the trevally as i haven't eaten them before. Any tips on how to cook the fillets up? By the way, 1 lane of the boat ramp is meant to be open tomorrow. Looks possible... Cheers, Tom

hi mate, i was also there sat night. No luck for us... how far in were you and how far from the shore? We were one of the furthest out in the bay

Different people like different tides but i'll try answer according to how i fish them! Bream- Run in Flathead- Run out Whiting- Run out Jewfish- Run out or tide change Salmon- Run in Tailor- Run in Just remember that time of day can also be important!

Bad luck about the king mate! You'll get him next time. There's definitely still a few around the harbour thats for sure!

Congratulations! Your first fish on SP is always memorable. Lovely little flattie!

Hi mate, Sp's are definitely an option from the sand. Same sort of rigs should work but the retrieves are a little different. The double twitch style technique can work but its all about experimenting. Sometimes they'll hit it as soon as it hits the water, other times you'll struggle. A fast wind and pause repeated over and over should be a good starting point. Summer/Autumn is best for this though! cheers, Tom