Tempe

[kingwhiting]

Hey guys long time reader first time reporting. Went to Tempe today for a fish under the train rails. Didn't catch anything legal but I have seen the water boiling, but it was a bit too far to cast into the boil. Have anyone else fishes there often? What do you get around there ? I heard u get jewies

[stevo-72]

I flick plastics were it splits up to wolli creek, only ever got one jew in there but have seen guys in tinnes pull them up on a high tide - run out on the eastern side of the rail bridge. You do get some nice bream in there but they glow in the dark so dont eate'm :-)

[kingwhiting]

Never seen a glow in the dark bream. The water there is pretty polluted. But it goes to botany bay. I wonder if the bay is polluted too

[aero.gard]

If you like your health I wouldn't eat anything from there. There plenty of big jews in the cooks. Eveyhing I catch there gets raleased to fight another day. Try up were the breakwalls are you can maybe eat the fish there. It can get bizy at times but I go during the week.

[Robinsoi]

Hey Guys,

Check out the clip below which includes fishing on the eatern side of the rail bridge and they got a nice one. I've tried flicking a plastic around land based without any luck on the other side where the river branches into Wolli Creek.

Does anyone know how far up the Cooks river the mulloway will travel.... what about the bridge on Illawarra road next to Steele park .... is it worth a crack at throwing plastics around the bridge pylons land based?? Any other spots for land based catch & release mulloway fishing??

Thanks heaps

Ian

[aero.gard]

Iv tried both land and boat. You need a boat so much eazyier cover more ground and you can find the holes much better with a sounder

[stevo-72]

Ive tryed to sneek a plastic or two around those bridges , like the road bridge (not the Princes hyw)the one that takes you over to earlwood i found it to be so snagy it was a pain. The rail bridge seems to be the better option.

[scaffdogg]

Mate you can catch bream,trevally,flathead,tailor,jewfish all the way up to steel park try from steel park and walk down the river towards Tempe you'll find anOther bridge a little bit down jewfish definitely on the turn of the tides

[prawn*]

I flick plastics were it splits up to wolli creek, only ever got one jew in there but have seen guys in tinnes pull them up on a high tide - run out on the eastern side of the rail bridge. You do get some nice bream in there but they glow in the dark so dont eate'm :-)

in the rain we just had i was looking in there as i drove past in the traffic and was thinking youd be crazy to eat anything from there all the crap of the road was just pouring into water and the water looked brown prolly all the oil and brake dust plus commercial waste no doubt that gets dumped in there place was full of floating cans shopping bags ect looked disdusting i heard from a mate that his friend caught a jew up there and guttered it to eat it and it had a rat in its guts that enough to turn me off

[stevo-72]

Its still a very nice place to fish, when there hasn't been big down pours of rain it can look very clean. When the mullet are on you wont believe how far they go up the river, even on a big tide they will swim right up storm water run-off drain , wait for the tide change and out they go fast.It has to be the best time to nail a jew when those big mullet come in the cooksy.

[luderick -angler]

Having grown up on the Cooks and using the cycle paths I've seen jewfish just past Wardell Road, I have seen the trevally, bream and mullet go well up past Campsie to where the Cooks becomes a concrete canal, I have caught blackfish well up past Wardell TRoad and over the years some of them would put the fish photographed on her eo shame I once took a bag of over 30 just up from Steel Park and every fish went over 44cm some of my biggest bream have come from the deck of the Illawarra road bridge on bread I am talking fish of 3 and 4 pounds, this river has been no secret to the locals for the last 20 years and man it is good in summer to get home and walk down and get a few flatties bream the odd jew whilst walking the banks with lures. If anyone is heading up there soon in aboat let me know be very keen to tag along as I really only shore fish it but know every eddy and hole like its my backyard, biggest jew by the way I personally seen come out was from the big sweep behind the second tee on the golf course caught by an old guy using blood worms it went in guestimate terms near on 20lb not bad for an ex sewer! Theres even been small frigate mackeral seen behind the airport hilton one year!

[stevo-72]

And dont forget that king fish get up in there also, ive got a couple last year in front of the rowing club... salmon also.

[pigbody23t]

the mighty dirty cooks river , a fav haunt for my after work fix , a funny thing happened one day i was there i wish to share

i was flicking for a bream when i came upon a chinaman with buckets rod holders and keeper net , so i spoke to him for a wile he had little english and my chinese is as bad as his English but ...we both spoke good fishing i asked him if he ate the fish he caught ,,, YES was his reply then i pointed out the sign that stated DONT EAT THE FISH HERE pollution in the river he said its ok the sign is on the other side of the river , i smiled and wished him well and walked along a bit more ,,,,

[jenx]

sad thing is, it's probably going into sushi somewhere !

[kassin01]

hey mate ..my advice dont eat fish from there ....toxic water and ground there

[stevo-72]

Yea Glow in the dark SUSHI _ BAR , the more it glows the fresher it is....Would be even better after today's rain.

[redpump]

OH! I live in Marrickville if anyone wants to take me around the George's River for fun I'd be more than happy to tag a long and learn some tricks

[PerryR]

OH! I live in Marrickville if anyone wants to take me around the George's River for fun I'd be more than happy to tag a long and learn some tricks

Its funny how everyone is quick to say dont eat anything caught from the Cooks River as it might be toxic, but do people consider the fact the the bream,jewfish and whiting that they catch out in the bay probably spent a good deal of time foraging and eating all the slime and muck at the bottom of the river before heading into the bay and then the ocean to breed.

Also consider that the fish people catch from the breakwalls will be feeding on the crap that flushes out of the stormwater system and the river with every change of tide.

Nobody would eat fish from the river, but I would be cautious about the amount of fish I eat from the bay in general. Bear in mind that the Penrhyn Bay area near the new boat ramp is also toxic and off limits. You are also catching fish which feed in this area.

I guess that its a bit like Sydney harbour. Eat fish in moderation and at your own risk.

i dont think that the fish feeding in this area dont move a

[padfoot]

I used to live in Tempe when the ban was on. I was of the understanding that it was the heavy metals build up from all the industrial sites along the river that was the real health concern.

I had a google and found this : http://www.sciencealert.com.au/news/20112510-22760.html

I noticed Paracetamol and Ibuprofen are on the list of chemicals found in the river? At least the fish wont have headaches.

But generally it mentions pooh. Lots and lots of pooh.

[Kevsta]

I regularly cycle along the cooks river, and so far most of the fisherman I've come across have buckets to keep their catch. It makes me cringe that they would eat their catch and feed it to their family members. I've even seen people fishing Alexandra canal which is off limits but the fisherman turn a blind eye to it. What I don't get is the break walls at the mouth of the cooks is only a stone throw away from Alexandra canal yet people think that it perfectly fine to eat their catch from there.

[f1shen]

I used to live in Tempe when the ban was on. I was of the understanding that it was the heavy metals build up from all the industrial sites along the river that was the real health concern.

I had a google and found this : http://www.sciencealert.com.au/news/20112510-22760.html

I noticed Paracetamol and Ibuprofen are on the list of chemicals found in the river? At least the fish wont have headaches.

But generally it mentions pooh. Lots and lots of pooh.

I can tell you know that when I did environmental science at Uni, we did field work at the Cook's River and it is *nasty*.

We also used to trade horror stories about it - my favourites are that all the pollutants in the river caught fire in the 1970s and burned for several days as they couldn't be put out (this one's a bit apocryphal).

The other one was that, when excavating for the airport rail link, tests done several metres down into the sediment were still revealing levels of heavy metals (mercury in particular) way in excess of any safety regulation.

I always found it quite sad that this river was more or less used as a chemical dump for years with no concern for the fish or any kind of concern for the environment or future use of the River. The sewer overflows STILL run into it and straight into Botany Bay - a disgrace in my book, but I don't think the Government has any incentive to change it. Really, I'd be wary of fish in Botany Bay, too, but you have to draw the line somewhere. As long as you don't eat fish five days a week from there, you should be ok. We've all gotta die of something!

So I guess the moral of the Cook's is: catch, but always release.

[jim bream]

I can tell you know that when I did environmental science at Uni, we did field work at the Cook's River and it is *nasty*.

We also used to trade horror stories about it - my favourites are that all the pollutants in the river caught fire in the 1970s and burned for several days as they couldn't be put out (this one's a bit apocryphal).

The other one was that, when excavating for the airport rail link, tests done several metres down into the sediment were still revealing levels of heavy metals (mercury in particular) way in excess of any safety regulation.

I always found it quite sad that this river was more or less used as a chemical dump for years with no concern for the fish or any kind of concern for the environment or future use of the River. The sewer overflows STILL run into it and straight into Botany Bay - a disgrace in my book, but I don't think the Government has any incentive to change it. Really, I'd be wary of fish in Botany Bay, too, but you have to draw the line somewhere. As long as you don't eat fish five days a week from there, you should be ok. We've all gotta die of something!

So I guess the moral of the Cook's is: catch, but always release.

Hi f1shen totally agree with what you have written i would not eat fish out of cooks river but no people who have and being doing it for years and they are still going strong when i was a kid we use to fish the river for fun this was in the late 70s there use to be an old man very cranky that fished the river and caught big numbers he came from the north shore by bus dug his worms one day fished the next there were quite a few old fellas that would fish cooks river but this guy was the best by far don't no what he did with the fish but he would all ways be there ive being told not to eat the fish out of botany bay because it does not fair much better than cooks river one must understand that a bream will enter a lot of rivers in its life time were you catch the bream doesn't necessarily mean that they are clean they enter the river and back out again so the thing is how clean are these fish no body can really tell just don't eat to much of them i suppose or don't eat them at all they would tell us at school how dirty the river was mercury levels and so on that was in the seventy's nothing has changed since then were are the mighty Greens to fix this on going problem.

[stevo-72]

Is this how the SHIT gets into the cooks river? The sweeper machine had just gone past and this looks great now.

[Koalaboi]

Hi f1shen totally agree with what you have written i would not eat fish out of cooks river but no people who have and being doing it for years and they are still going strong when i was a kid we use to fish the river for fun this was in the late 70s there use to be an old man very cranky that fished the river and caught big numbers he came from the north shore by bus dug his worms one day fished the next there were quite a few old fellas that would fish cooks river but this guy was the best by far don't no what he did with the fish but he would all ways be there ive being told not to eat the fish out of botany bay because it does not fair much better than cooks river one must understand that a bream will enter a lot of rivers in its life time were you catch the bream doesn't necessarily mean that they are clean they enter the river and back out again so the thing is how clean are these fish no body can really tell just don't eat to much of them i suppose or don't eat them at all they would tell us at school how dirty the river was mercury levels and so on that was in the seventy's nothing has changed since then were are the mighty Greens to fix this on going problem.

Where are the mighty Greens?

Their stands on pollution of the environment have been pretty well documented over past decades.

I reckon the unasked question here is where are the other parties on this issue? Today's Sydney Morning Herald has a long story on the major parties allowing the pollution of waterways to go pretty much unchecked let along unpunished over meany years. At the same time, in the same paper, another story showing how the Greens have exposed long term pollution of pristine mountain trout streams by coal fired power companies.

It can be fashionable for many groups to denounce the Greens but I put it to you that the Greens have the political balls to go out on the edge to focus national attention on issues, as did the Suffragettes seeking political representation for 50% of the population, as did pinko commies seeking social justice for Aboriginal Australians leading up to the 1967 referendum.

Step back and take a look at the big picture: Greenies are here and they do a good job all in all.

For us as recreational anglers the question is, "Where are we (Fishraiders) on this issue?"

KB

Edited March 19, 2012 by Koalaboi

[Jewhunter]

G'day all.

This thread started out as a fishing report.

It has now gone way

If you would like to talk about anything apart from what the member asked about fishing around Tempe, & in the Cooks River, then please start your own thread in another one of our forums.

Cheers,

Grant.