beachwormer

After a long break from fishing been getting back into it. Been using live worms and nippers and struggling to get 1 or 3 fish, sometimes nothing. Then last Saturday night after the southerly died down, and then the following morning I got amongst them. Bronte Beach. Rising tide, live beachworms, running sinker rig with 8 lb leader. Been eating these all week. Bloody good to know that you can still catch a great feed in the middle of Sydney. On Sunday morning I was plucking them out from in between about thirty surfers!

Hey Dave, thanks. Got one tonight about the size of yours - a good feeling after a long break from fishing! And it was on 10 lb trace in the surf!

Totally like your approach Dave, including the rubbish pickup. Those are some healthy whiting, great job. I've always thought 10 lb is too heavy to get bites for whiting, but it doesn't seem to stop you! Here I was last night in Botany Bay with live nippers and 5 lb trace and couldn't get a bite, even though I know there are whiting there!

Very healthy sized dart there - would have been fun landing them. Well done

I feel you. Sadly that's mostly the case nowadays. When I was a kid if you had live worms you could catch whiting off any Sydney beach in summer until you got sick of it. Now 3 or 4 is a big catch.

Great catch and some top eating there. Using nippers for bait?

Do you have a pic of the wife in her bikini? If not, well done on the whiting anyhow.

Don't know about up that way, but about 4 years ago I was with a mate at Bronte and he caught 2 whiting at night the likes of which I have not seen before or since. People reading your post will think 60 cm is impossible but these 2, although we didn't measure them, were way way beyond the 40 cm mark - in the dark we thought the first one was a school jew.

whoa thats a thumper!

Hey guys, I've heard they are top eating - do you skin the fillets with a knife? How do you prepare them for the table?

Great stuff guys. Can't you increase the breaking strain of your line and leader and skull drag the big bream out of the leases? Or do they just not bite on the heavier line? Just wondering - a friend of a friend used to use handlines 20 lb BS with chicken fillet on the Georges - throw to the oyster leases and then give them no quarter when they struck and drag them back to the boat - kilo plus fish.

Hey Anf, glad you had fun. Are the shovies good eating/

Aweome trout, well done!

Mate they look like the kind of bream my dad used to tell me about he would catch at Dangar Island in the 50s and 60s. He said the biggest one's head would be on display at the bar of the anglers rest pub, they were 4, 5 and 6 pound fish. Can I ask you what bait? Were you using unweighted baits, and what is your opinion on how to hook fish like these, do they just hook themselves or do you have to give them line when you feel a bite. And how light do you fish? I would imagine these fellas would be quite a handful on 2 or 3 kg line. Thanks!

That is one lovely fish - brown trout are so beautiful. I bet it tasted great too, plenty of succulent pink flesh on there. Fishing is such a great pursuit to get the kids into. I have had a couple of recent nice sessions with my ten year old too, snaring 6 or 7 whiting and bream on worms each outing, once at Umina the other time at Brighton Le Sands. My Dad taught me, I am teaching my boy, and so the cycle goes on. Love the look on his face, that is no fake grin!

Hey IVZ350, please tell me, just how big was that bream in your avatar picture? It looks massive.

well done! that would have made a nice meal.

Very late report!! But it was my last decent fishing session, just before Christmas, on turn of high tide with lightly weighted chicken fillet in parmesan, from the only public wharf at the marina. 11 solid bream in 2 or so hours. Wish it was this easy all the time!

Mate what is that bream in your avatar? It looks like it would have gone 2kg plus!

Mate I have no recent info but I lived there for 5 years until 2004. Coffs is one of the best spots to catch jewies of the beach. If you know how to catch beachworms, these are the gun bait. Otherwise ask where you can buy them live, there will be places.

Hey mate, are you talking about Dickson inlet as the estuary, or Daintree river? If you did all your fishing shore-based, didn't you come across a few crocs? I remember when I was there 15 years ago it was alive with them! Where did you stay if you don't mind me asking?

See Link: http://www.fish.wa.gov.au/docs/sof/2005/sof20052006-0603.pdf Looks like a different kettle of you know what!

Mate that's a lovely fish, well done. Little red looks happy too!

Great fish. Just returned from Qld. Would you believe a fish such as this is not a legal capture up there? Legal length is 75cm! Also strange, sand whiting and bream only need to be 23 cm (changing however to 25 on 1 March 2010). Flathead over 95cm must be returned to the water.

Bring on the prawning light post!