lake conjola, clarkes point reserve, georges river, chipping norton and kissing point

[nickm469]

Hi guys been on annual leave for the past 2 weeks and doing a whole heap of fishing. Started off 2 tuesdays ago at kissing point, fished from 11 pm to 3 am. caught 3 jewies ranging from 49cm to 60cm nothing special. All caught on hawkesbury prawns and on bream gear. Good fun and the missus also pulled up a nice big mud crab. kept the crab and the bigger jew. Lost heaps more jew due to the small size hooks being spat.

Went to lake conjola that friday and stayed for 4 days. Fished infront of the deepwater resort most of the time as it was windy most days. Caught tailor most just over legal size on ganged pillies, blackfish all undersize on prawn and bread, and my first fish on soft plastics a flathead of about mid 50cm. Lost majority of the bait to undersize tarwhine. Any large bait was taken by stingrays. Man there's a lot of them. The lake was absolutely full of huge mullet but they would not respond to any baits. Tried to fish the beach a couple of times but too windy.

Came back to sydney and thought I'd give chipping norton a go. The jews should be running through there in the day ATM when the herring come through. fished from 10am - 3pm. Plan was to throw the bait jig around to get a few herring as bait but first cast was snagged onto god knows what? fished for a couple of hours with peeled prawns on a rising tide. Found a couple of good sized bream which had scabs on their bodies and a small estuary perch. All were thrown back.

Last friday went to Clarkes point reserve. Armed with an assortment of baits prawns, pillies and squid. Fished from midday to 5pm. Managed to get 2 good sized trevally close to 50cm. One took a pillie cube, the other took a whole squid. Rest of the bait was demolished by the local pinkie population.

Monday went for a fish @ Fitzpatrick park, Georges river from 10am to about 1pm. Got 1 awesome bream of about 5cm and one huge 5 cm tailor. Called it quits after the tailor and saved the bait for that evening for a session at kissing point.

Got there at 6pm and tide was dead low. Only managed 4 herring for bait. Butterflied the first and sent him out. Meanwhile casted out a few unpeeled prawns to see if the jew were still about. Sure enough they were. Managed to land 2 using the bream gear again, both were sent back were about mid 50cm. Saw the rod with the herring getting some interest so sat back and watched it for about 5 minutes. Tap tap tap for 5 minutes, usually means the bream have gotten to your bait and picked the sh#t out of it. So picked up the rod and struck hard anyway. Felt a heavy weight on the end of the line , a couple of winds later, the weight takes a huge run. Big headshakes YES! jewie for sure! After an awesome couple minutes of trying to steer it away from every pylon and from under the wharf up comes the silver flash I've been longing to see. My missus nets it in 1 go (trained well) LOL. 93cm and just under 8kg. Next herring gets butterflied and sent out. About 20 mins later i get a huge run. Kept going and going, couldn't pull the rod out of the holder. Thought I had the jew of a lifetime. After an even longer battle my heart was broken when I saw a massive ray surface. Got 1 more jew on the prawns before I left. Again mid 50cm, was released.

So that's all the fishing I have done. Hope to get out a few more times, if weather permits.

Good luck to anyone chasing jews ATM seems to be plenty around.

[PRED-ATOR]

Great report mate!

Shame about the rays although they are still awesome to play tug of war with lol.

Looks like you got the georges river worked out really well.

Cheers,

Stan

[rjc123]

Great work mate!

A few great fish there

That's a good jew as well!

Cheers, Tom

[paul.kenny]

What a great way to spend your annual leave and good to see your persistence was rewarded with that cracker Jew.

[Spooooled]

Great catches mate

[col35]

great report and pics

a bit of a worry about the chippo fish with the scabs, maybe polution related

[Kooks]

Aren't you worried about the dioxins from around homebush way? Kissing point is really close to the toxic area and the muddie would living the toxic mud. You're braver than me.

[bharris]

Nice fish but i wouldnt eat anyfish or crabs that far up river n dont eat anything out of chippo

Sent from my GT-I9100T using Tapatalk 2

[shak4g63]

That's an awesome fishing holiday

Well done mate, so do you use whole unpeeled banana prawns?

Tight lines,

Shakeel

[Yaulpang]

Hi Nick,

Thanks for the post, great read.

I was thinking of heading down to Lake Conjola for Christmas. Can you recommend somewhere for a family of 4 who like fishing?

Cheers,

Paul

[nickm469]

That's an awesome fishing holiday

Well done mate, so do you use whole unpeeled banana prawns?

Tight lines,

Shakeel

hey mate, nah just using peeled hawkesbury prawns on "wide gap or gape hooks" i think they're called.

[nickm469]

Hi Nick,

Thanks for the post, great read.

I was thinking of heading down to Lake Conjola for Christmas. Can you recommend somewhere for a family of 4 who like fishing?

Cheers,

Paul

hi paul, we were staying at the lake conjola deepwater resort, you can fish from the shore there or the floating pontoons. most fish were biting from early morning and late afternoon. you could try the beach or the shallows in front of the parking to the beach. I'm not 100% sure but I think the post office also hires out boats if you're interested. Apart from the resort I think the other place you can stay is the lake conjola tourist park. There are some wooden platforms there you can fish off too. hope this helps

[Yaulpang]

Thanks Nick,

I'll give the deepwater resort a try. Thanks for the info, much appreciated.

I'll post the results in Dec!

Paul

[brendong]

Nice work Nick, some solid Jews there. Glad you enjoyed Conjola and found a few tailor, there are some absolute horses in the system that go 70cm plus....they are a big fan of the mullet you saw. You also found the rays, there must be thousands in the system too, fortunately they don't like eating my plastics and well done on scoring your first fish on plastic!

[rf4@aapt.net.au]

Hey Guys

As I have a holiday house at Lake Conjola, I can tell you that the fishing has really died in the arse over the past few years as the Shoalhaven Council has mismanaged the Lakes entrance and not kept it open, the endangered Little terns that come to nest each year are now not nesting for the second year as the Lake is closed to the ocean again since June and no bait fish for them to feed on, and what was once a great place to catch a feed is now just plain hard work to catch undersized fish , there are still a few big lizards being caught but nothing like it was.

If you want accomadation at Conjola you better get in quick as it gets booked out every year, although I know there have been a lot of cancellations at the Councils entrance park due to the Lake being closed but these would be only camp sites, or contact the local agents in Ulludulla for holiday rentals.