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This response does not meet your estuarine criteria but could do much worse than the entrances to lagoons tucked in behind many Sydney ocean beaches, or other storm water out flows in similar spots. Good rainfall will open the lagoons and all sorts of bait fish and other stuff will flow out and in to the nearest gutter where all your usual candidates will be waiting. I remember hearing stories of my great uncle fishing from the southern sydney cliff tops above the old ocean outfalls before modern sewerage treatment plants came in. Back then storm water and sewer were all mixed together and dumped out, schools of tailor used to be in such a frenzy that an unbaited set of gangs would get you a few bucket loads of fish in a big rain event.

Zoran I've never had a break in but have only been at it off the beaches at night in earnest for a year and a bit since the kids came along! Prior to that was a day time activity. I fish the northern beaches mind you and I'd say they're a fair bit safer than some areas around the 'gong.

Remora are meant to taste OK but I have heard some funny stories about them.... When you gut them they are often full of turds... Not their own either they will happily chow down on the recycled goodness of their host or the nearest boat.

Thanks for the responses fellas, good to know I'm not the only one it happens to! Guess the options are: - pack up and find a new gutter - have a quiet chat and drop a few discreet hints - move out of Sydney! Guess it can be a bit like surfing, people turn up to a beach, see someone else fishing/surfing a certain spot and all head there. Fufu - I'm no expert on it but I think that stationary lights that aren't too bright like a bridge or wharf can be good, but when you have complete darkness and then put a moving spotlight on the water the fish get spooked. Savit - it wasn't narra- that spot is usually crowded from the pines up to the lagoon entrance, was a beach further south which on further research is closer to 2km than 3! My mistake. It's fishing well at the moment as the lagoon opened up with recent rains. I get your point though, sometimes you have a fairly featureless beach that is one long bank too far to cast over and only a few gutters close to shore... Can get crowded then.

G'Day Raiders, Wondering what your take is on etiquette for beach fishing at night and use of lights/torches....... Due to work and young kids, most of my fishing is at dusk in to night. I love the peace and quiet of being out under the stars and 99% of the time have no light on when im fishing. If i'm rigging up or baiting ill use the red mode on the headlamp (unless its a full moon then no light needed at all!) and the only time ill actually use the white light on the headlamp is if I bring something to shore, have a bad tangle or if I'm packing up. Even then i take care not to shine the light toward the water and never use it when casting or retrieving. If you don't use the bright white head lamp your eyes become really tuned in to the low light levels and can generally see pretty well. I've heard that bright lights on the water can spook the fish and I think that's true - a lot of time they are feeding right at your feet! NOW.......its a pretty common occurrence, and happened to me last night, I'm fishing a productive gutter in full stealth mode with no light, then a few other fishos come along equipped with the most ridiculously bright head lamps, the power of these things is right up there with car head lights. First they look straight at me from 20m away and nearly burn a hole in my retina, then proceed to scan the gutter and breakers with their lights including the area right in front of me, assuming they are looking for a good spot to cast. They settled on a spot about 30m away (right in the middle of a shallow bank incidentally) when there was no one else on the 3km long beach except for me. Every cast they would light up the waves and have a good look around for 30 secs or so, and every retrieve the lights would go on again when they started reeling in. The bite went dead pretty soon after they showed up and the gutter that was producing tailor, salmon, bream with strikes every cast more or less shut down and I only got a banjo shark and wobby before packing up. Not to say that the lights were definitely what killed the gutter but I don't think it could have helped much. This gutter was running really close to shore. What do you do in this situation??? I'm generally reluctant to have a go at people but this really bugs me and isn't the first time it's happened, not by a long shot. I don't want to be that guy that tells someone "I was here first! go fish somewhere else!" but when they park within 30m of you on a 3km long beach with nobody else its tempting. Do I go tell them not to shine their lights in front of me? Or maybe just a casual chat asking if they are having any luck, then mention "you know some people believe lights on the water scare the fish off...." with a intentional protracted awkward moment for a few seconds afterwards.... Any advice you can offer would be much appreciated! On the off chance that anyone reading this likes fishing on the beach at night with 10,000 lumen headlamps, maybe spare a thought that some people prefer to fish with the lights of the stars and moon and not much else...

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/latest-news/lagoon-killed-my-husband-claims-wife/news-story/40196af54b022123e3371a7224585fa2 ^^ I would find a different place to go in the water! Probably not that bad in reality, it has fairly regular big flushes of salt water. People swim there dogs in there and wade through the water near the beach a fair bit....

Yeah Narrabeen Lagoon is the place to go for mullet. Plenty of yakkas around the ferry wharf at Manly! Just go super early.

Anyone know if it is legal to use a harpoon/spear with a detachable flopper tip running to a rope to land fish? I thought that would be easier than a standard gaff or flying gaff, especially land based and even more so if you are solo. Tie your rope off to a good anchor (or just round your waist if you are mad....) then as long as you can get good penetration with the spear head you're safe, drop the rod and rope the bugger in...

GFS is the Global Forecast System run by the United Stated National Weather Service. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_Forecast_System It basically predicts weather across the globe. Many weather websites/services get their data from GFS, some just update more frequently than others. ADFD is the Australian Digital Forecast Database which is put out by the Bureau of Meteorology (BOM). I believe they take global forecast models including GFS then refine them to a certain extent both manually and using ridiculously powerful computers to produce Australian forecasts. The thing that I prefer with GFS based forecasts is that they update and can be viewed multiple times a day, where ADFD based forecasts only update for end users (ie. us) once a day. Plenty can change in 24 hrs especially when there is a storm or severe weather event around. MHL bouy data is also pretty handy - http://new.mhl.nsw.gov.au/data/realtime/wave/ ^^ It gives you real time data for actual swells in the water and also a directional spectrum which tells you how much energy is coming from what direction, even multiple directions.... there are buoys right up and down the NSW coast so you can track a big south swell as it comes up the coast, or a big NE swell the few times a year we get them. Also gives real time sea surface temps.

Windguru pro and Passageweather are the best in my opinion for wind and wave forecasts. Other sites only update their forecasts once daily from GFS, Windguru and Passageweather update automatically as soon as GFS updates which is 4 times daily I think. BOM runs their own ADFD which is largely based on GFS. Yesterday around Sydney had winds from all points of the compass at some stage of the day which is a bit different. It's rare the forecast models can accurately pick subtle wind changes around the coast particularly dawn/dusk, they usually get the bigger scale stuff correct though with large southerlies coming through etc. Waves is a tough one - measuring is so subjective, one man's 3ft is another mans 1m or 2m or 4ft its a bit tough to compare. All affected by where you are, local wind, refraction from headlands etc. Windguru pro is best for swell as it will give you 3 x different swells in the water at any given time. Swell forecast sites like Swellnet are pretty handy too - gives you different swells in the water and usually people report on swell conditions and wind from the beaches 2 or 3 times a day. Live cameras are pretty handy too!

Hey mate bad luck! That moment the pressure goes off the line and all is quiet after a long fight is such an empty feeling! What weight line/drag were you using? I'm no expert on jewies but 50 mins sounds like a long time, I think another poster here brought in a massive jew in 20 mins or so on 20lb mono and 40lb leader - its the "mid north coast" report..... from all accounts I have read they fatigue pretty quickly. Assuming you were using mono/FC leader - when you brought it in did the end of your line look all cloudy/white instead of clear? If it was a shark their abrasive skin can wear the line really badly and break it or your knots, they sometimes roll around and can get a few meters of leader wrapped around them. That's not to mention the sharp hardware at the business end! Anyway keep at it i'm sure this will just make you more determined..... I'm still on my beach jewy quest as well - about 9 months in to it so far and no jews landed but plenty of sharks.

Yeah swell period very important... A 3ft 13 second period ground swell is a very different beast from 3ft 7 second period wind slop. Long period swells generally have longer breaks between sets, sometimes 10 mins plus, when the sets come it looks like the whole horizon is rising up in front of you!! This is the kind of swell that you could walk in to a rock ledge, rig up, few casts then the whole ledge will get swamped by a monster set. Same amplitude with the two swells but it is the frequency aka period that will catch you out. There is usually more than one swell in the water, BOM or other sources might give the predominant swell direction and height, but you can have a NE wind swell, a south ground swell and a SE swell in the water all at the same time and affecting your safety. BOM and many other sites don't report these multiple sources of power. Windguru used to have 3 different swell sources day by day, 8 intervals per day , updated from GFS models every 3 hrs. Now they have restricted 3 x swells to membership only.....you get one for free. Other sites to try are magicseaweed and also swellnet and coastal watch. No one pays more attention to incoming swells than keen surfers!! I know because I am one. They put out out detailed written reports every few days, key words to look out for are groundswell, long period swells and new incoming swells that are forecast. Anything over 3-4 foot would generally be a cause for caution regardless of the swell period. For general ocean wave and weather conditions, you won't find a better free source than passageweather. Gives you synoptic, wind maps, visibility, precipitation, wave height/direction etc. All straight off GFS and updated as soon as the models run which is every 3 hrs. BOM updates their warnings, forecasts etc. Once every 24hrs, we all know the weather changes way faster than that, and the forecast models with it. Cheers, Sam

FG is a good knot but I have found no good for repeated casting (ie. 100 casts or more per session) like if you are spinning with lures and it has to pass through the guides over and over. I reckon its OK for lighter lines (ie. leader 20lb or 30lb mono) but with heavier leaders and 100g lures the constant punishment of flying through the guides ends up compromising the knot even if tied well. I still use it now when spinning but keep the FG knot outside the guides and wear a glove or tape finger for casting. Can also get wind knot issues with the braid if the knot has to pass through the guides.

Thanks for the comments fellas. Small bronzies are great to eat, no bones and clean white flesh that is firm and comes apart in big chunks. Apparently no good over 6ft or so due to the ammonia, I've never tried eating that size. I'll keep most legal size fish that are half decent for the table but release most sharks I catch, I'm more reluctant to kill them for some reason rather than scaly fish. Assume the disconcerting comment is about the number of sharks right on the northern beaches.... Yeah there are plenty about, inside the nets and I don't berley them up at all. If they really wanted to chew on people they would do it regularly! Cheers, Sam

Yeah the baitrunner feature can be handy but the main drag isn't that smooth on the reel I have. Tends to feed off in fits and bursts on anything but a low setting. 6 month old reel and I have treated it pretty well. 20kg maximum drag on the fin nor 100, highly unlikely I will ever use it close to that setting but I assume it will be nice and smooth around 10-15kg drag with no issues. 400m capacity of 80lb braid doesn't hurt either. Hopefully will come in handy for jews and sharks off the beach and kings off the stones - if I can latch on to one that is!

Sorry mate was a typo it's a 20kg....had to redo the whole thing in a bit of a rush. Its a shimano 1202 coastal currently with a 12000 bait runner but changing to a fin nor lethal 100 this week. Been eyeing off an assassin beachmaster rod but that will have to wait a bit! They are quite dear.

G'Day Raiders, New member, first post. I spent a fair whack of time writing this and then lost the whole post when I went to submit! Here we go again... I'm generally land based off the Northern Beaches and rock ledges....Friday eve last week went down to a local spot with the ongoing jewy quest on my mind. Gear was 30kg 12ft rod with 12000 bait runner spooled with 65lb braid and another lighter setup with 30lb braid. Bait was store bought whole bonito, yakkas and squid that had been sitting in the back of my ute for half a day in the hot sun. Get to the spot, set up the heavy rod with 80lb mono leader, snelled 9/0's and a whole yakka. Cast #1: Plunk it out the back around sundown as far as I could with a 110g sinker and whole yakka, drop the rod in the holder and head back up the beach to rig my other rod. My mate gives me a shout and the rod gets some good jolts. Grab it out of the holder, slack line, I reel it in, feel a good weight and bit of thrashing around, see a big splash beyond the breakers in the failing light then all is quiet. Called it for a big salmon with the acrobatics and let the bait sit for a few more minutes thinking maybe he will be back or something else will come along. All quiet so reel in slowly and bottom hook bitten off through the 80lb...... hmmm wasn't a dodgy knot so maybe a stonking tailor, maybe massive salmon or shark. Cast #2: Re rig again with the 80lb mono leader, out goes another yakka, glow stick on the rod tip by now. 2 minutes passes and the rod buckles over with a screaming drag. Struggled to get it out of the pipe holder which was buried deep in the sand due to the tension on it. Finally get it out, put some weight on the thing and "pop" its gone...reel it in mono bit through above the top snelled hook. Only one candidate now must be the bronzies Cast #3: Re rig again with 130lb mono leader, 150lb 7 strand nylon coated wire trace. Same process but yakka on a single hook this time. Plunk it out, drop it in the holder take up the slack and go try to have a chat to my mate about life in general, had hardly got a word in since we showed up with the action. Bang off goes the rod again as hard as cast #2, glow stick flexing toward the horizon and a screaming drag, such a great sight to see. Grab the thing, leave it to finish its first run and start to work it back in plenty of weight in this one. He goes for a second run and "pop" gone again. Start kicking myself and thinking must be a dodgy knot of my doing, bronzies don't usually pull hooks once they are set. Reel in and see the 150lb 7 strand coated trace has opened up at one of the factory loops at the end... not too impressed that it broke way before the 65lb brain and 130lb leader.... thing was brand new out of the pack and bought only a few weeks ago. Might try to make my own in future. My mate is fishing a bit lighter than me with 20lb mono, leaves his rod in the holder, were having a chat 20m away near my rod, see his buckle over, falls flat on the sand and starts flying across the sand towards the water, all we could see of it was the glow stick zipping across the sand! Fastest I have ever seen my mate run he got it in knee deep water and bitten off soon after when he put pressure on. Had a good laugh about that, he almost lost his whole combo never to be seen again. Cast #4 and Cast #5: Same rig as cast #3, get the strikes within 5 mins of casting and a quick run but no hookup, 2 hooks are better than one I think but harder to do with trace than mono Cast #6: Same rig again, strike and drag goes off pretty much as soon as the bait hits the water, didn't even have time to drop it in the holder. Decent first run but less weight than previous hook ups. 5-10 mins worth of to and fro and beached a 4ft bronzie. Was keen for some flake but didn't have the right kit to fillet and transport it properly so back she went, carried in to knee deep water and swam away slowly but surely Cast #7: All is quiet for around 25 mins which is a rarity for the evening, bait comes back in untouched Cast #8: Throw out again this time without the wire, back to 80lb mono. 10 mins passes and get a few good hard thumps that move the rod a decent bit. Not that frenzied thrashing of a bronzie and definitely something with some size to it. Thinking jew but that might just be optimism on my part. Cast #9: Repeat cast 8 All out of bait and time to go. A good fun session, not very relaxing at all but good to get plenty of hook ups. Only one cast out of 9 that didn't get a good strike. Beaches have been pretty quiet for me since July/August last year. Hopefully the warm water is bringing them to life again. What I might have learned out of it; - Went to a beach Ive never fished before, quiet spot with no-one else fishing, not that easy to access and hardly any artificial light visible from the water - Bait absolutely reeked, this might have had something to do with it - As soon as I released the bronzie, the rest of them went off the bite Will get some photos next time. Cheers and good luck! Sam

Slight tangent - there is a smartphone fishing app going around at the moment where people post photos of catches etc, the frequency of under size fish posted is pretty scary. Some people put up a photo of around 25 flathead, some would have been less than 15cm and the biggest barely legal. 35cm kingies posted up no worries with the people happy about it, 5 x juvenile snapper all well under 25cm. It happens at least daily on this app, fisheries should really get on to it and track people some how. Their user profiles would be linked to email addresses and could be EXIF data from the images to narrow the search down. The fact that these people are doing this regularly and then bragging about their catch is pretty scary, they either have no idea of the bag limits or don't care.

That's about the same as it looks now. Lookout is a great spot to scope the gutters in that part of the beach before a night fishing session. Heard someone pulled 1m diameter ray out of the lagoon over the weekend, best do the stingray shuffle if wading the flats. Never know what is going to pop up in there!

Yes it is still open at the moment. They have recently pulled sand out from the entrance back to 300m approx. upstream of the ocean street bridge, its all around 1m - 2m deep through this section. I don't often fish the lagoon - prefer the rocks or beach myself, but did recently get 5 good size whiting in 45mins wading the sand flats near the caravan park on light gear and small poppers. Great fun and a nice way to fish on hot day!

Try a bit of superglue on the cut next time! I always carry a tube in the first aid kit, it's the same stuff they use in surgery (cyanoacrylate or methylacrylate). Especially if you are a long way from a doctor, superglue is great as it keeps it shut and seals well to keep nasties out. Just give the cut a good clean first.