Georges River Jewfish Are Improving All The Time

[jewgaffer]

I thought I would do a topic on the Georges River and in particular the jewfish and the fact that the Georges River's jewfish are slowly and steadily becoming more abundant.

It is a hard river to work out at times but when you get to know the idiosynchrasies, the favourable conditions and where the fish are not likely to be, fishing the Georges River can be a fruitfull and a very rewarding experience.

The Georges is a peculiar river due on one part to the lack of surrounding mountains and on another part due to the Georges river having a general shortage of cleansed sand, refreshed weed beds and good shore line vegetation. It is rather individual compared to the more blue like waters in other coastal river environments. It is a great river, quite complex in nature and it's good fishing can often be underestimated and the better spots can often be misjudged.

During the years of the old car ferry between Dolls Point and Taren Point, before the Taren Point Bridge was built, that area did not hold many jewfish apart from the passing jew or as I like to call them the "marauding" jew. They were either leaving the system before daybreak generally or coming in at night, seeking better structure from which to ambush the schools of baitfish holding up in the river.

Being different to resident jew as is the case with Hawkesbury jew, which has been home to resident jew as such for centuries, the "marauding" jew though interchanging seasonally with resident jew, came in from close in reef and coastal areas and travel over the bay at speed to school up and hunt around the Tom Ugly's Bridge structure, the pylons and associated errosion areas as well as other deep underwater structure, particularly around Bald Face Cliffs, Kangaroo Point and Jewfish Point, another hot spot and named accordingly many years ago.

Those jewfish were known to hang around the Georges for just long enough to get fishermen excited. It's a fact and according to folklure among Georges River jew fishermen, the jew would dissappear for months on end, leaving many jew fishermen hanging off jew rods fruitlessly for hours on end, even weeks on end.

Larger species would suddenly come from out of nowhere like "ghosts of the night" - the Georges River was where I first heard those terms used - The "ghosts of the night" came in groups and clusters of males escorting a female and covered a lot of ground attacking anything and everything throughout the river in literally unchallenged supremacy, only to disappear again for months and re-appear among the spawning size jew schools which came into Botany Bay in good numbers when the big schools of yellow tail and trevally came in during the autumn and, in another wave dependent on season, conditions and currents, school jew came in in large mumbers accompanied by the "larger winter jew" around the beginning of an "early" winter.

Occasionally the "marauding" jewfish would go up up river to Como, the mouth of Woronora, Hearne Bay and the East Hills footbridge. This up river area was not known as a regular area for immature or soapie jew in earlier years. The Georges River is the least comparable with the Hawkesbury which holds resident colonies and is quite unique compared with other rivers along our coastline

As many fishermen would know Taren point Bridge aka Captain Cook Bridge has produced some very big jew consistently over time and school sized jew from five to seven kilos as well as undersized jew are caught there regularly.

When "marauding" jew come in, they are often of good school size and fisherman will often catch several in a session, catching one after another in a short period around the run out tide in night time hours which apart from giving jew the opportunity of attack by surprise tactics against the river current, the run out tide in itself forces baitfish out of the shallows and into deeper water and sweeping them down river periodically when they attempt to mark time as the current increases.

In 1979, not long after ugly stiks were introduced, I can recall a group of new aussie fishermen who were regularly fishing exclusively it seemed for jewfish off the East hills footbridge, being given regular mention in the local newspapers with photos of school size jew mostly around five to seven kilos which is generally the make up of a spawning school coming in from the outside reef areas. These boys used Ameican ugly stik rods and I remember Jim Mitchell's sport store at Hurstville running out of ugly stiks not long after the stories reached the newspapers.

The typical size of the jew caught throughout the Georges River over a more recent period has been much smaller than that, and have been around about the size as would be the fish introduced as a result of a large jew fingerling release program in the Georges River which took place a while ago.

I believe the smaller jew are residents and part of a Georges river jewfish colony who like to frequent the Bridge areas and now that the waters around the Bangor Bridge have established with ongoing food and vegetation, the marauding jew regularly come back to intermingle with the others and it appears they are becoming more used to settling as such in the Georges River system.

Looks like the Georges river will improve even further over time by natural attrition and I hope you all will catch bigger and better jewfish more often in the good old Georges River.

Cheers to everybody

jewgaffer

Now that I've just reached my 1000 posts, it's time to amputate the crook typing finger, straighten the bad back and get out more and into the jewfish. This coming week looks like being a beauty !!! I can feel the change coming already. Can't you feel it now !!

JG

Thought I'd post up a photo of my decky Taren Point Julius with one his big jew, so that members can see the size of jewfish that come in with the tide like "ghosts of the night" and deplete the baitfish numbers as the tide runs back. There has been an abundance of jew caught in the lower Georges similiar in size to this fish that you don't get to know about, and perhaps never get to hear all that much about either.

Cheers! Get the jew rods ready! It's great fishing for jew and it's not all that impossible!

JG

Edited February 17, 2008 by jewgaffer

[Penguin]

That is a top Jew your decky mate is holding there, wish I get one that

big one day.

Also congrats on your 1000th post.

penguin

[coastspinna]

best jew i've seen came from the georges at 27kg ....3 am phone call "look whats in the ute"

that was around picnic point

[jewgaffer]

Hi esky. Here's a bit more of information overload It's better than getting information underload.

To answer your question, first off I would try the section between the deepwater motor boat club and the m5 . The water up there is still very dirty at the moment which makes it a reasonable starting point. The mangroves are nice and thick around the m5 bridge and this area is known to hold good flathead, which are, as are jewfish, attracted by the presence of fry and mullet. The present of flathead would indicate the suitability for jew as flathead can tolerate some murk in the water.

If need be you could eliminate that section and keep moving progressively down river to sound out areas up to as far as Lugarno where the run in tide current (the new water) is generally fairly fast.

It is best to anchor in the channel opposite the moored boats directly in front of the restaurant and not so much the moored boats opposite the fishing platform as this excercize requires main channel proximity and moored boats, particularly when it's obvious that they are rarely used, provide cover for baitfish and are excellent structure as a fish attractant.

If you decide to fish a night session at Lugarno I would be inclined to stick to the run out tide for now in case the bridge area jew hunt down river until the water improves with the run in tides when you may get a double whammy with the Botany Bay crossers coming up river.

If the water was reasonably clean in the Lugarno section at the moment, I would fish from the bottom of the tide to two hours down the top, remembering that the tide can be up to two hours late up there and it varies depending on the moon phase, winds, currents etc and this can't be pre-calculated and allowed for in tide charts.

At Lugarno when fishing for jewfish, the best place to anchor is in the main channel which is relatively narrow in that section and have rods out with large baits on them, staggered in distance on each side of the channel with one or two aimed in the direction of a moored boat. Have a rod directly out the back of your boat into the channel. Make sure you have a bag or two of slow release burley and have the burley bags on the bottom weighted with sand mixed in with the burley.

Esky I hope this helps and let's know how it goes ay.

Cheers

jewgaffer

Edited February 19, 2008 by jewgaffer

[DaveD]

what would be some other optimal bait other than the squid?

also any real suggestions on a few LB areas, easy access for the jews?

Lovely little read there Byron, love how informative you were with the changes in times, specifically the info on the ugly sticks and selling out. I think everyone is. I've noticed the odd jew up the river, nothing too big, makes me wonder sometimes what flows through the waterway and how far those big ones are really going up the little system. It really is a wonderful waterway though Byron, nice to see you pointed out how magical it is. Sure contains just about everything in there, including boots, tyres, even McDonalds.

[frangkie]

top info gaffer! very well thought out and also very well written.

[Jabroni]

Great read there JG and great pic aswell, i think i might try some of that stuff out myself, i've never caught a jew.

The guy at my local tackle shop (kogarah) was telling me about a Georges River Jew legend called Julius, cant remember how many hes caught in a year but i think it worked out to be more than 1 a day. And theres some graffitti near Como about the said Julius. I'm guessing its the same Julius?

[jewgaffer]

Hi Jabroni that's the old Hungarian Julius alright. He's caught about fifteen this year, quite a few from onshore and inside Cronulla. You wouldn't want to be paying a jew fisherman an hourly rate, that's for sure

There's not much room on the good days at Taren Point Bridge or Como either and it's good when the lousiest day works better.

Julius and I have been fishing at Taren Point, Hawkes and the Hacking for a good while now.

Landbased fishermen can carry on like litte kids over territory at times. Do you much about the graffiti?

Cheers mate Send me a pm if you like might be able to catch up for an intro to the legend who left his big unbaited beach rods in the way at the stern instead of the bow when I lost an almost unstoppable jew at CC that left Julius with his mouth open all gaff, all back and no brains at the boat

jewgaffer

[Kirks]

hey byron

Awesome information about the georges, i hope to get down there and have a fish, is there any places land based for jewfish.

I also like the pic of the big jew, least they are out there.

steve

[mikey85]

Probably should mention too, If your going for a land base fish around deepwater, it might be best to bring a cricket box and tape it to your arse.

Jokes aside, I often go down there late arvo for poddy mullet and have, on occasion, guys have tried to pick me up.....

[Ouliis]

Thats a very good report JG. Ive never caught a jew fish before, just reading your report makes me want to go out there and have a try. Next time i have any qestions about how to land one in i know to ask you.

congrats on your 1000th post