Fisheroudge

Wow mate that is awesome, and well documented too! I saw the blue rag when i was first looking at the photo and idly wondered if it was intentional . . . . best of luck in the COTM. I'll bet it tasted alright too. [Me off longy last week] Eggry

It depends what species yr after. I grew up at Longy and whilst I haven't fished there a helluva lot, I know a coupla places. On the northside (the basin) you can go off the beach for Bream and other beach species particularly during or just after a southerly blow. I've caught salmon on a float (because I was losing too much gear)from the rocks near the channel marker pole and there's few Good Blackfish spots scattered around to the sand behind the point which you need to get in early if you want to fish from. On the southern side, long reef beach is good and if you're willing to walk toward the tide poles in the middle of the beach sometimes there's not too many people around! There's Blackie spots off the rocks again and near the rocks I've heard of people catching Snapper in winter and have tried myself without success, one time I tried throwing metal lures at a school of Sea Mullet just off the last stretch of beach and got busted off by something BIG that I'm pretty sure wasn't a Snapper.

You can fish the Beach in a big swell but it's not easy. The further out the bank is the better and you will need some big star or similar sinkers to hold you in place. I used to think it was impossible but one night at curl curl I saw a guy get a couple and I matched his tactics with some success. I think there are less fish around but they are still there so u need to spend as much time as possible in the zone rather then drifting through at a rate of knots and then reeling in to re-cast. There's a variety of sinkers for this situation, the pyramids are good as are others with spikes and weight. you may need to use reasonably strong line (18lb )too which may take some of the fun out of fighting the fish and turn it into a skull-drag, but it's more fun than re-rigging constantly because you snapped your line trying to cast the big sinker over 4 feet of shore dump. I dont think the tide is as important as the general conditions like barometer, wind, light levels and numbers of surfers/swimmers in the water, but I'm still (always)learning. But what you most definitely need is enough water to cover the fish by a couple of feet, some gutters have this at high tide and others at low. Generally on Sydneys northern beaches you can only find enough water at higher tides, lately with all the swell there are some beaches that will actually fish well at low tide byt htis is rare. And finally, I haven't paid any attention to swell periods since I stopped surfing, which relates more to the power of the waves and the comfort of those bobbing up and down on them (boaties) as far as I know than anything tangible for land based fishos - I'd be happy to be proven wrong though! And one small anecdote from my second outing with the new rod I got for xmas about ten years ago - I convinced my brother in law to fish with me in 2 foot waves, no gutters, onshore wind, almost dead low tide in Janurary (i now know he only came along for the beer) . . . we were running out of servo pilchards because I was so bad at puttting them on ganged hooks they were falling apart, so he changes to the mangled remains from my earlier failures on a single hook and chucks them into the lamest rip running back out to sea and sits back to enjoy his beer whilst I was babbling on like a fool. To cut an already long story short he pulled in a legal Kingie after about a half hour battle on 10 pound mono. having never seen one before we had to get on the net to ID it! I've fished (and surfed) that same strectch of beach semi regilarly for most of my life and I've never seen aother king in the surf there or any other beach. Cheers, Gerg.

Hi Eastwood, If you go another 5 or 6 Ks along the road (Liberator General San Martin Drive) past Akuna you get to Illawong Bay where there's a large picnic area with parking and about 50 metres of concreted shoreline (looks like an old wharf) with pretty good access to the deep water. You can get get other species there too. Gets very crowded sunny weekend afternoons. If you keep going past illawong and up the hill you can turn right to cottage point which wont hold many landbased fishos without overcrowding but is another deepwater locaation. Best of luck Gerg.

Awesome report, made me very envious, especially since I went trouting that Friday 4/6 (during all the rain)in the new england tablelands and got wetter than i do when I go surfing. I saw a lot of good looking trout water around Ebor but most of it was the wrong side of live(yes I tested) electric fences, and whilst I did manage several hours spinning with small minnows I saw little evidence of the existance of trout much less hits. On the way home on saturday I fared slightly better around Walcha. After stopping at the garage and asking about access to rivers where I didn't have to cross private land I wwas informed of the public stock reserves along the MacDonald and Cobrabald Rivers where I ventured without luck due to the volume of brown water flowing after the day before's deluge. I did however see fish, Platypus and water rats and had a couple of hits on my lure. And I know where to start nest time! Building up the knowledge required to successfully fish for trout in rivers and creeks looks like it could be life-long learning curve, especially when you live in Sydney. Keen to try fly-fishing one day, have seen guys targeting Bream in Narrabeen lake during summer. Adious, Fisheroudge.

I've never had any luck with surface lures at the back of the lake, although I"ve met a guy who claimed to have got a couple of flatties on poppers in the channels that come out of the creeks. And most of the winning bream in the ABT yak contest a few weeks ago came from similar terrain, although mostly on SPs and Blades, and there had been good rain in the last few days before the contest . . . but I'm sure it can be done, please keep posting. One of the ABT contestants that didn't make the final was free fishing up the back of the lake on the sunday and hooked something massive on a blade, (I strongly suspect a big Jewie), on 3lb line and 2lb leader, which then proceeded to tow him around the lake for five and half hours before busting him off!! And I managed 37cm whiting this morning on an ecogear blade out the front of the caravan park Cheers Gerg(Fisheroudgje)

Wow! If that's an Estuary Perch, is it not a monster?? I've never caught one, but the ones I've seen in mags have been nowhere near that size, congrats Fisherboy

I've been managing to get a few off the rocks on pilchards at curl curl whenever the swell allows and I read in the paper they're just starting to school up around the heads. I've seen a few schools of fish off the beach also, but no idea what they were although I would guess salmon.