Ivo

Landbased fisho here. In my opinion the landbased options are really starting to get up and going again after the winter. Anywhere where you can access a drop off or channels going up onto flats etc. is great, and you're likely to pick up some nice flathead around this time. Not sure about spots at your exact location, but whiting have started to pop up in the rivers and along channels etc in the harbour/Lane Cove River etc., so im sure you could find some in middle harbour, although they're mostly small at this time and not worth targeting if you want to take anything legal home for dinner. Also in these areas, the bream are starting to head back in from more open waters, and while they're not plentiful yet, im sure you can pick up a few if you find them. Overall, spring is pretty good fishing in the harbour and esturaries. It's not really the best time for any particular species, but you're well in with a shot on a great mixed bag, as the winter tailor, trevs and salmon start to be replaced by big flatties, bream and whiting.

Awesome to be able to get out and have fish, whatever the result. Good timing too, with the weather warming up and making those early mornings bearable

Not sure, but I've kayaked around their once or twice, at least to the edge of the harbour. I've also seen some fishing videos of them fishing their. I think the part south of the bridge might be closed. Then again, their is a marina, so you can take your boat through, not sure iff you can anchor up and fish however.

Harbour places can be a bit quiet over winter i find, unless you can get to the deeper water. Not sure about Darling Harbour per se, but I know the boardwalk along by pirama park and round to the anzac bridge can be good.

Cheers Henry, looks like i'll have to go and give it a crack! Will aim to get a detailed report on the place up in the next few weeks.

Yeah, the closure doesn't include stocked waterways, only rivers and streams to allow the wild trout to spawn

Hi guys, while looking around for spots to fish I was pleasantly suprised to find that Wentworth Falls Lake in the blue mountains is stocked with trout. Does anyone have any experience with fishing these waters or know anything I should know before heading out. Will probably be looking to fish bait and maybe a throw a few soft plastics around here and there. Have looked back through the site but haven't found too much info, although I know that most of us are saltwater fishos mainly.

Slow roll is severley underated in my opinion. Even better is to get a worm style plastic and just twitch it along the bottom. Sometimes simple really is best, and it has certainly saved me some sessions after fruitless hours of single hop, double hop, slow lift etc. etc.

Thanks for that. I just did a bit of looking into the horse mackerel, and it does look fairly similar to what we were catching. As for spotsaround Iron Cove, I'm landbased and usually just pick a point and start walking haha.Although, in general, fishing on the Drummoyne side will be focussed more on casting up against the obvious structure (rocks, mangroves, drains etc.), while on the Rozelle side is more flats fishing with a few submerged trees/rocks etc with fish congregating. Due to me coming from Victoria road when I fish, I don't know as much about the southern face along the UTS rowing club/timbrell park, although from around Le Montage through to the entrance of Hawthorne canal always produces at least a few fish.

Well... with finishing up the HSC and the ensuing chaos that was the week after I finished, it seems like I haven't been able to have a decent fish since late August/early September. And let me tell you, the fishing seems to have gotten alllootttt better since then! Anyway, onto the report. This is a combined report of a shrt camping trip I did with some mates earlier this week as well as an afternoon session the the day after i got back (caught the fishing bug again!). All fish were caught on my lox 1-3kg rod with a 1000 size reel, 6lb braid through to 6lb leader. Day One at the basin (5/12/16): After setting up our tents it was time to cool off in the water, followed by hurredly running back to grab the nipper pump and collect some nice live bait for the evening. Evening coincided with the low tide, so we walked out on a spit that had formed and cast literally a few metres in front of us into a nice deep hole. Fishing either with a tiny sinker or just a long shank hook, it wasn't long before we were into some fish. Conditions were perfect, although the evening was definately a story of quantity over quality, with only a few fish going legal. That being said, it was a fast and furious few hours followed up by BBQ'd whiting and bream for dinner Day two (6/12/16) would prove to be much more interesting, however for all the wrong? reasons it seems. The nippers were firing and we had what we needed in probably 10-15 minutes. Not long after it was out to the water. First fish for me was a nice 34cm bream which would become my dinner. However, it seemed as though a large stingray or two was lurking in our hole. 5 times over the session we would get the gentlest pull, almost like a tiny whiting. Upon reeling in to check our bait we would discover our hook in half! Quite odd. Whatever was eating our hooks seemed to also be keeping the fish away, as the day was much slower and yielded some old favourites the toadfish and weedfish Overall it was a fun few days that got the fishing bug back into my system as well as giving me some nice freshfish dinners (always a bonus to not fishing in the city). Before I move on, a quick question for the ID experts out there. Throughtout both days we caught a few fish that looked like yellowtail scad, except they were pushing 35cm in length. I've never seen them that large, do they grow that big? Sorry for no pictures, but hte fish had a bright yellow tail, a bucket mouth and oval stipes along the lateral line, perhaps 5 in total. I've only seen bait sized yellowtail before, but these things were monsters, and ran pretty well also. ^ The larger of the flathead caught at Iron Cove Anyway, after ariving back home i felt the urge for a fish, so i headed down to the local iron cove, rod in hand, ready to tackle the bream. Almighty winds were coming through for the first hour or so, so I did what any respectable fisho does and sheltered in the local tackle store. With the wind down and my wallet a fair bit lighter I set off. ind meant fishing from the points as i usully do wasnt possible, so instead i focussed on the small bays and mangeroves around Iron cove (Drummoyne side). This limited my chances of a bream, however i was soon into a small flathead that went roughly 35cm. A couple of suprise whiting also took my gulp sandworm, while a small bream seemed to take a fancy to the zman grub. I also managed a larger flathead of about 53cm before low light made me head home for dinner. Well, that's about it I suppose. Sorry for the long report, I guess im just excited to finally be back and able to fish on a regular basis (and who wouldn't be???). Now, to read all the reports I've missed, I'm sure there's some cracking fish being caught!

That's one of the major problems with redfin, they thrive so well in Australian waters that you get swarms of fish in the 10-20cm range, with none able to grow any bigger due to competition for food. That competition is also (apparently) one of the reasons why they love red lures/sp's, because it mimics the redfin fry that larger redfin often eat

Thanks mike Hopefully I can get some next time I'm out, although I don't see myself targetting them specifically. Flounder are an interesting fish, they always seem to pop up when im drifting or casting sp's for flatties and whiting

I recently got a 1000 sienna for the good old esturary work. Seems to be a great reel. It's obviously not the smoothest, but the drag is great and it seems good value for money.

Hi mike, nice catch there! what do you target the LJ's on? I see them alot when I'm fishing but they seem fairly hard to hook up, any tips?

nickb, the left of that first picture looks like the gladesville bridge to me, pretty impressive to get decent kings round there. Mmm, I love it when it starts to warm up and the fishraiders all head out again, these last couple of weeks have seen a surge in quality catches.