Where has the bait gone?

[juicy233]

What's up everyone. I've been fishing heaps this winter mostly off jetty's and with the occasional boat trip and I can not find live bait for the life of me. If I use a sabiki at a wharf I just get trevally, bream, tarwhine, tailor and even a garfish once. Driving around looking at the sounder as well, we'd find bait, drop sabikis down, try little ajing lures but all that's ever down there is trevally and tailor. I'm just wondering if this is normal for winter as I only properly got into fishing last spring but I remember catching yakkas with my dad all year round before this. Does anyone have any tips on getting the yakkas in winter or any insight into if this is a usual occurrence with winter? Cheers

[Peter KH]

I havent seen yakkas, however, I am about halfway up the Georges River. The other day I was fishing a sandbar, in the shallows was a huge school of mullet, they were there for a solid 15-20 minutes, some very big ones too. The mullet are in the estuaries, I found them right on the dead tide.

[Aussie_fisher]

Still getting some yakkas around the harbour wharves though it’s been much slower. 1 hour at Early morning or dusk they seem to actively bite and during the rest of the day it’s a big hit or miss. Need a lot of burley and even then mainly just been getting tarwhine and pinkies.

[XD351]

From what I can find they spawn in winter / early spring in the ocean  and the juveniles move into the estuary to grow - see linked documents below . 
I wonder if the northern migration of tuna in winter is just a coincidence with that or something that has evolved over the eons? 
A lot of fish species shut down in winter , the cold water shuts down their metabolism and they don’t need to feed as often . 
One paper I looked at mentioned that they the yakka population disappeared at temps near 13deg and didn’t return until 17deg was reached - no mention of where they went but maybe that temp drop is the trigger to spawn ? 
https://www.dpi.nsw.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0008/1453760/Stock-Status-Summary-2022-23-Yellowtail-Scad.pdf

[sashkello]

It might be very much location based. A month ago there were so many at Balmoral Wharf, you could get half a dozen with one pass of your keeper net. Recent weeks would be lucky to get one. Was catching a Harbour ferry yesterday and saw big groups of mullet and garfish underneath the jetty. And sometimes there's just no bite at all on any fish like they all dropped dead. Surely in winter there is fewer of everything, but some days are better than others.

[PaddyT]

pretty normal at this time of the year-late winter/spring gets very hard to catch bait inside the harbour. 

[juicy233]

yeah thanks for all the info it just seems this winter has been so cold and was just wondering if that did much

[Steve0]

Many fish species slow down in winter or change habits. If you fish for salt water species, watching the sea temperature can help your understanding of when the bite is better and when they may be a little harder to find.  BOM ocean current and temperature is a place to look http://www.bom.gov.au/oceanography/forecasts/idyoc300.shtml?region=NSW&forecast=SST

Note the 'click to play' button.

BOM still hasn't switched to https and may give you that message. If so, open continue to the BOM front page and search for and open 'Sea temperatures and Currents'.