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Fishing Tips, Notes & Articles

Gary Brown’s Fishing Classes

Held at: Mako Bait & Tackle, 201 Newbridge Rd Moorebank

Held on: 13/5/2002, 20/5/2002, and 27/5/2002

The notes in this document on techniques and species can be used anywhere. The places though refer to the Sydney region, specifically Botany Bay, Georges River, Woronora River, and Port Hacking.

Baits

· There are many things you can marinate your bait in so it sets up it’s own berley trail when it hits the water. These things include: parmesan cheese, fish or tuna oil, garlic, cod-liver oil, aniseed, sugar, fetta cheese juice/brine, etc. You can also then coat the bait in crushed chicken pellets for an even greater effect.

· A good place to gather bait is the sand flats at Maianbar. Walk out as the tide is falling for nippers, worms, and crabs. When you’re driving in through the National Park, if you say you’re going to Maianbar you won’t need to pay the park entry fee.

· If you’re going to freeze bait, make sure that once it’s frozen you put it into packages where there is little or no air around it. This will stop ‘freezer burn’ which will reduce the effectiveness and freshness of the bait once it has been thawed

Pilchards:

· IQF (individual quick frozen) are best for bait, others for berley

· Can be used whole, filleted on both sides, or cut in half on the diagonal for any number of species.

· When using half pilchards as bait, pass the hook through once, lay the hook along the bait, and tie a half hitch around the tail, or pass the hook and line through the eyes and then bury the hook in the flesh above the backbone

· Whole pilchards can be ganged onto 3 or 4 hooks. A good way to put the gang in is by pushing the hooks into the pilchard from the top towards the spine. This makes it swim better and increases the chances of a hookup. Always measure where the last hook will go first and then put that one in first, working your way back to the head of the pilchard

Green Weed:

· Best around June

· Found in still water, like drains, swimming pools, etc

· Can be frozen, but exclude as much water as possible by wringing gently and then patting dry with newspaper or paper towel

· The finer the strands the better, the longer the strands the better

· Kelso is one place to get it, Dolls Pt is another

Wheat:

· Used as bream burley

· Boil for 20 minutes prior to using otherwise it will swell up inside the fish and kill them

· Cracked corn is also a good bream burley

Pink Nippers

· Seem to breed about 8 times a year

· Need to work the hole 3 or 4 times – two pumps first, wait 5 seconds, then another 2 pumps

· The best time to pump for nippers is when the water is just covering the sand, either on the run in or run out tide. If the water is too deep, the nippers will be too far under the sand and getting them out will be much harder

· Seasons don’t seem to make much of a difference to the availability of nippers

· Nippers can be frozen – drip dry and freeze overnight in the bottom of a plastic container. Make sure only 1 layer though as they will stick together. Then, after they’re frozen, put them into a container in lots of about 40

Chicken Breast Fillet

· Chicken breast fillet in Parmesan cheese – cut up the breast fillet in pieces the size of your little finger and roll each piece in powdered Parmesan cheese. Freeze and store in an airtight container. If you’re making a large batch, then freeze the pieces in lots that you would use in a single outing

Soldier Crabs

· Terrific bait for bream, whiting, and flathead in the estuaries or off the rocks.

· Can be found in big numbers during the warmer months, but you can also find them in the cooler months

· A good place to get them is the sand flats at Maianbar.

Places

Sutherland Pt, Kurnell

· Fish when the seas are big from the south at the end of the wash inside the bay. Use very little or no weight and a long rod from the shore, but use plenty of weight if fishing from a boat

3rd Runway, Sydney Airport

· Fish the northern side of the 3rd runway on the spring tides when the westerly winds are blowing. Drift towards the tugs moored there

· When the wind is coming from the NE, fish the southern side of the runway on the spring tides

Lugarno Ferry

· Fish for bream or blackfish along the rock wall downstream from the old ferry ramp. Fish the run out tide any time of the day. Don’t throw out too far (maximum of 5m) as the bream stay in close to the wall to feed. Berley with chicken pellets to get them around.

Oil Wharf

· Troll for snapper here around the fish cages. Early morning and late afternoon are the best times.

· You can also anchor up (outside the exclusion zone) and berley the fish living under the wharf out. Expect trevally, bream, etc. Position your boat so that the current runs under the boat and out to the wharf. This however is only really a nighttime proposition.

Weirs

· You can target bass around the weirs in Sydney in late autumn/winter as the bass need to get into the salt water to breed. Also, after periods of little or no rain, the saltwater has progressed to the downstream side of the weir. This allows the fish species able to live in only salt water to move right up to the weir.

Diversion Wall at Gray’s Point

· Anchor up fore and aft parallel to the wall, but outside it. You can take your boat inside, but you really need to keep an eye on the tide as you can easily get stuck inside as the tide falls.

· Use an 8-foot rod with 20-pound line and cast over the sand inside. When you get something, just skull-drag it back to the boat!

· You can also live-bait here with whiting or mullet, either inside or outside the wall

· Jig plastics inside the wall and retrieve them right up to and over it.

· You can also use a long handled landing net to get your fish from inside the wall into the boat

Yowie Bay

· On the eastern side, the shore is very steep and rocky and goes down to meet a flat sand bottom in around 30 feet of water.

· When the tide is low, moor your boat parallel to the shore and pick into the rocks where you can basically drop your bait over the edge to where the rocks and the sand meet. Use a 12-foot rod so that you can get your bait in the right spot.

· When the water is high, drift and cast your un-weighted baits or soft plastics back towards the shore. You could even run a small float to keep your bait just above the oyster-covered rocks.

· There’s also a weed bed somewhere in the middle of the bay, but Gary reckons the only way you’ll find out exactly where it is situated is to be in a boat with him, and then he’ll have to kill you so you can’t show anyone else!

Wonga Bay

· Great place to fish from the shore. Use berley off the wharf next to the boat ramp. Best fished an hour either side of the high tide.

Dolan’s Bay

· Good place for squid and flathead off the pontoon, but it does get crowded here on the weekends. Float your baits close to the pontoon to get the fish hiding under it out.

Woolooware Bay

· Fish between the disused oyster racks on the run-in tide. Tie up to a pylon and cast your bait or lure in between the racks.

· You can also troll around the old oyster leases at the entrance to the bay. Be careful as they are in a bad state and can take a lot of gear.

Groynes at Kurnell

· These rock fingers running out from Silver Beach in Botany Bay are both a summer and a winter fishing proposition using both lures and bait. Fish in close as the walls provide good shelter for the fish. Species you can expect to catch here are bream, flathead, trevally, and blackfish, but is really only best around the top of the spring tides.

Tips and Techniques

Berleying/Bait

· Fish frame hung from the back of the boat after you’ve taken a couple of fillets off it sets up a good berley trail, especially if you’ve not gutted the fish first

· Bag, bucket, sack, etc – put a weight in it first to keep it submerged. Then just alter the length of the rope attached to it to vary the depth at which the bag, etc sits

· Keep the berley trail going at a constant rate – don’t start and stop and start again. The rule is a little, often

· Use mixtures of large cubes and chicken pellets. Pellets drift down with the current and this is then where you put your baits. The larger cubes hit the bottom and roll along breaking up there. This can attract the larger fish and it can also keep the pickers occupied away from your bait.

· Once you’ve got the fish around using berley, get them into the feeding mood using ‘Fish Frenzy’. Use only sparingly to keep the fish on the bite, and keep the berley trail going as well

· Always peel your prawns before you put them on the hook, but leave the tail and head on. Then just before you throw your line out, squeeze the head end of the prawn a bit to get the juices moving. This will set up a bit of a berley trail from the prawn.

Situations

· When drifting over weed, use a float and a sinker with the stopper set so that the bait floats along just over the top of the weed at the end of the leader

· When pickers seem to be taking your bait all the time, switch to something that is not natural, like chicken guts, chicken fillet, etc. Also, use a slightly larger sinker if moored and put a longer leader on (up to 2m). This will allow the bait to rise off the bottom in the current away from the pickers.

· If you are berleying with chicken pellets and find that sweep are invading, change your burley to minced pilchards – this should get rid of the sweep

· Don’t pack up and speed off to your next fishing spot on the river or bay. Put a couple of lures out the back and troll to your next spot. Set one lure at about 0.5m, one at 2 to 3 m and one at 4m deep. You’ll be surprised at what you’ll pull in.

· When selecting bait jigs, the cheap ones are just as good as the expensive ones. Use only a sinker if the baitfish you’re after on the bottom. Put a small piece of bait on each hook to increase your catch rate. If sweep are a problem, use small pieces of pilchard on the hooks instead.

· When targeting leatherjacket, use peeled prawns and a short loop. The peeled prawns are so that the fish does not suck the prawn out of the shell. Also, put the prawn, or piece of it, on the shank of the hook so the fish has to take the hook into its mouth to get the bait.

· If you’re fishing off the beach, hold the rod down parallel to the water’s edge and wind in slowly using a jerking motion. This will stop the wind bowing your line. If the current is moving your sinker and/or bait along the beach, walk along at the same rate to keep your bait from swinging around onto the beach.

· Jig with soft plastics during the winter for flathead. Use large reefs of the rod, letting the lure settle back to the bottom as you wind the line in. Be careful however that you don’t pull the weighted soft plastic out of the water at a great rate of knots – you can do yourself a lot of damage. Wearing polarized sunglasses will allow you to see the lure sooner and stop this happening.

· When you’re drifting, drop your baits out of the side of the boat where you’ve just been so you drag them along the bottom as you drift. Cast your soft plastics out the other side of the boat (in the direction you’re drifting) and use the technique described above.

· Look for any sort of structure to cast your baits or lures to. In particular, moored boats, channel markers, wharves, reefs, or pontoons are the things to look for. This is where the fish will be holding. Cast your lure or bait so that it will drift under or close to the structure and then hang on!

Weather

· After a long dry spell, the fish are a long way up the estuaries, around where the fresh meets the salt water. Try at the back of The Needles for bream, whiting, jewfish, tailor, and bass.

· After rain, move to the mouths of the rivers. Try the Cooks River break walls.

· Bright days, brightly colored lures; dull days, dull colored lures

Hooks

· Big hook–big fish theory is usually just crap. Use the smallest hook that will present your chosen bait properly.

· Use suicide hooks when anchored, size 1 to 1/0. Wide mouth hooks when drifting, size 2 to 4.

· You can spray your hooks with WD40 to stop them rusting, but do not use fuel derivatives anywhere near your fishing gear.

· Store your hooks and other bits and pieces in old film canisters and then label them. Make sure that the lids snap on tightly. If any start to rust, throw them out straight away as the rust will spread very quickly to the rest. Spray a little WD40 into each canister

· Ganged hooks – mustad 4202d pattern hooks are used and come in a good variety of sizes. Use 3 x 4/0 for a whole pilchard, or 2 x 1/0 for whitebait.

Your Catch

· Freezing fish – leave the scales and head on. You only need to gut and gill them and make sure you wash the cavity out properly. This will keep them fresher and is the case for bream and flathead in particular.

· Use a bottle of frozen tap water in a bucket of river/sea water to keep your fish in after you catch them. This will stop the stress enzymes that caught fish produce from spoiling the flesh as the cold water acts as an anesthetic on the fish.

· Always bleed the following types of fish as soon as you catch them to stop the flesh spoiling: trevally, tailor, salmon, mullet, blackfish, drummer, and any of the pelagics

Casting

· When trying to cast a large rod, instead of holding it by the grips with your top hand holding the line, try it this way: put your top hand up towards the first guide and use your bottom hand to hold the line coming off your reel. Then, with a sweeping motion down and across your body, cast the rod. You’ll find you have much more balance and require a lot less effort to get the cast out as far as previously.

· Be careful when you’re using soft baits. Instead of giving the rod a good reef, use a lob-style cast so your bait won’t separate from the hook in the process of getting it out there. If you do need to use a soft bait and need to cast it a long way, consider binding the bait to the hook with a piece of cotton.

Preparations

· Tie up a spool of 20 pound line into loops (using spider hitches) that you can cut off to use as flathead or bottom bashing rigs. Tie the loops so that they do not reach each other when the hooks have been attached. When you want to use some, cut off the last three loops just below the fourth (so you have a leader) and tie them onto your swivel.

· Pre-tie a set of leaders (swivel, line, and hook) for different fishing situations. Variations would be length, breaking strain of line, and hook size. Store them wound around a piece of folded cardboard with the tip of the hook inside the card so that you can just take one off when you need it.

Rigs

· You can use your spool of loops for different fishing applications. When you’re bottom bashing over reef, put the sinker on the last one and then a hook on each of the other 2. When you’re after flathead on the sand flats, put the sinker on the middle loop and a hook on the bottom and the top loops.

Knives

· Floating knives are probably really only for the novice fisherman. And even if a knife does fall overboard and it floats, there’s not usually much of a chance of getting it back

· You should carry 2 knives in your fishing kit – a gutting knife and a filleting knife. Don’t use your filleting knife to scale fish (you’ll just blunt the knife at best) – use a proper fish scaler

· Look for a knife with a rubberized handle and a blade 6 to 7 inches long.

· A rubberized glove is another good thing to have in your kit. It lets you hold fish when you catch them and take them off the hook, and gives you a good grip when you’re cleaning them.

Lures

· When you’re beginning to fish with lures, start by using the soft plastics. They’re cheap ($20 worth will get you a good variety) and they’re easy to use. Once you’re comfortable using these, then get yourself some hard-bodied ones.

· For hard-bodied lures, some float and some sink. Simply inscribe a small ‘s’ for sinking or ‘f’ for floating on the side of each one as you buy them so you know instantly when you pick one up how it’s going to behave in the water.

· Soft plastics are good for bream and flathead, but tailor just chew them up.

· The colors in soft plastic lures can bleed from one into the other. Purple and yellow seem to be the worst offenders.

· When storing your soft plastic lures, make sure that you keep them in a ‘worm-proof’ box. A ‘worm-proof’ box is one that will not react with the lures themselves

· If you use a soft plastic lure with a lead-headed hook, tie your line directly to the lead head – don’t use a snap swivel as this just adds another place where your rig could fail

· You don’t really need to buy lead-headed hooks to put in your soft plastic lures – just use a normal hook and run a bean sinker right down to it. Use it in the same fashion you would any soft plastic

· When using hard-bodied lures, start off with bigger sizes in the morning. If the day is overcast, maintain the size of the lures, but if it’s sunny, decrease the size of the lures you use as the sun gets higher

Species

Hairtail

· Hairtail can be caught at Portuguese Beach and Little Box Head, and you don’t have to be there on the darkest, coldest night in the middle of winter. Hairtail come into the estuaries to have a rest prior to moving further up the estuary when the water temperature starts to drop.

· The fish can be caught from about 3 to 8 pm any time from the beginning of April to the end of May before they move into the waters of Cowan Creek, Jerusalem Bay, etc.

Snapper

· Snapper are in Port Hacking from late May to early June onwards. Use an un-weighted 2 inch wide strip of striped tuna for bait

· Primarily found in South West Arm. Start at the sand bar across the entrance at the start of the run-in tide. Anchor up on the inside of the sand bar and cast your baits toward the deeper water.

· Keep moving up South West Arm as the water gets higher and the fish go off the bite, and then back out as the tide ebbs

Trevally

· Soft mouthed fish, so when they bite, don’t yank on the rod

· When caught, they will always swim anti-clockwise in a fluttering motion

· Use peeled prawns (as always) as berley with pilchards

· Fish using a light rod with a light, flexible tip, and use a hook in the size 2 to 4 range

· With trevally, you don’t always know when one has taken your bait

When using the prawns for bait, use a hook to suit the size of the prawns you will be using. Generally, a hook number 540 in the range 4 to 3/0 will be required.

Pilchards Pilchards are used as bait mainly for tailor, but can be used for a variety of fish if prepared differently. You can fillet one side of the pilchard and use the side with the backbone. This is a top flathead bait.

When ganging a pilchard, keep the hooks above the backbone, and make sure the barbs of the hooks are exposed. This ensures that the bait will stay longer on the hook and also that the rate of hook-ups will be higher.

When buying pilchards, get the IQF (individual quick frozen) type as opposed to the slab variety as they are of a better quality.

If you don’t have access to a refrigerator, salt the pilchards down with butcher’s salt and keep them in a cool place. Handled this way, they will last for up to a week.

Squid When you buy squid, they should be white in colour (their natural colour), not pink, as they are when you buy them in the packets. If the squid are pink, it means that they are not as fresh as possible.

When baiting up a squid, pull the hook right through the body the first time. Then pass the hook back through the body and finally through the head. This makes great bait for snapper and jewfish.

Whitebait These are normally small fish sold either fresh or frozen in packets. 1 or 2 loaded onto the hook (through the eyes) makes a great flathead bait.

With the larger whitebait, use a small gang to rig the bait up properly.

Slimy Mackerel Fillet the fish and load onto a gang, or cut it up into cubes and load onto a normal hook. Leave the shin on so the bait will be tougher and stay on the hook better.

Pink Nippers These yabby-like creatures are found in small holes on the mud or sand flays. The fresh holes where you will most likely find the nippers are the ones that have lighter coloured sand around the opening.

Nippers are great bait for any kind of fish, particularly if they are alive. Bait them up in the same way you would a live prawn.

To keep them alive, put them in a bucket with fresh salt water and an aerator. Any dead nippers should be removed from the water as they foul it and will kill the other yabbies in the tank. They can also be kept in a damp sugar bag with ribbon weed.

Pipis These bivalve molluscs are found on the beaches in the wash zone under 1 to 2 feet of sand. They make a great bait for any of the smaller varieties of fish caught from the beach – whiting, bream flathead, dart, etc.

Beach Worms These are also found in the wash areas of the beach. Use an old piece of meat or fish frame to find them as the wave is washing back towards the ocean. You can spot them by the ‘V’ shape in the retreating wave.

To catch the worms, place the meat (or fish) up water from the worm and place your finger or pliers under its body as it crawls to get the meat. When the worm arches to strike at the meat, close your thumb over the worm’s neck and pull gently but firmly. Pliers can also be used in place of your fingers, but the worm’s do not live as long as when caught wit the fingers.

Keep the worms in cool dry sand after catching them, as this will toughen them up so they stay on the hook better.

To bait them up, thread a piece of worm onto the hook, leaving a little bit over the end so it moves in the water.

Blood Worms These are caught in the mud flats near mangroves. Dig them out carefully with a pitchfork, breaking them out of the mud as you go.

To get a lot together, bury a piece of fish in the mud and mark it with a stake on the shore. This will attract the works from a reasonable area, making them easier to collect.

Bloodworms can be kept alive in a bucket of fresh salt water. Bait them up as for a beach worm.

Guts Mullet Gut – can be bought commercially or you can go to the fish markets to get it. Before using it or freezing it down, get rid of the ‘onions’, as these are of little use in the bait.

When baiting up mullet gut, push the hook through a piece, wind it around the hook, and then repeat until the hook is full.

Chicken Gut – sold commercially as ‘Fisho’, but this is not very fresh. It’s best to go straight to the chook farm or processing plant and get it while it’s still warm.

Baiting up is the same as for mullet gut. This is particularly good bait when the water is cloudy or dirty.

Where and When To Catch Fish Bream The best time to catch these fish is in winter on a very dark night around the top of the tide. The fish will come in close to the rocky shores to feed, and this is where you will catch them.

Moor you boat three to four boat lengths out from the shore and throw your unweighted baits back towards the rocks. Keep very quiet as the larger bream are easily spooked, or scared away. Fish very light, using no sinker if possible. If you must use a sinker, use only a split-shot right on the hook. Use six to 8 pound line and a size 1 or 1/0 9263 hook.

Best baits to use are mullet gut, peeled prawns, chicken gut, or pudding (a mixture of camp pie, flour, and parmesan cheese is very good).

The best places to fish for bream are the Hawkesbury River, Cowan Creek, Sydney Harbour, or Georges River. Schooling bream can be found at Bar Point, The vines, Juno, or the bridges. In these places, use 15 pound line with a running sinker (just enough o hold bottom), a long trace, and a size 1 to 3/0 hook.

When fishing for bream, it is always a good idea to berley. Use a mixture of boiled wheat and laying pellets.

Snapper These fish are found mainly offshore, north of Newcastle and south of Wollongong. The best times to fish are very early or after dusk with a bright moon.

Use a 4/0 92554 hook with 1 or 2 ball sinkers running, but right on the hook. Best baits are striped tuna (fillets or cubes), yellowtail, and frigate or slimy mackerel. Try to keep the baits off the bottom.

Berley the fish with old fish frames, etc, and keep a track of the depth at which you have your bait when you get bites.

Flathead There are basically three types of flathead – Dusky and Sand, both found in estuaries and tend to be lone fish, and Tiger which are found outside in water of about 30 fathoms and usually in patches.

Flathead prefer moving water, so try to use moving baits. Spinning with either live bait or a lure is often the best method to catch them.

Estuarine Flathead will position themselves so that their food is washed to them on the runout tide. This is usually on the edge of sandbanks, in eddies, etc,

Use a 3 to 6kg line with a 1/0 to 4/0 hook and drift with your line on the bottom on the end of a 2 to 3 foot trace.

Flathead season peaks from early December to late April, with the larger fish moving to deeper water at the end of the season.

Whiting These fish can be caught at all hours, both in the rivers and off the beach, and can be found on the sand banks in these areas. They are mainly a summer fish, although winter whiting are also caught.

Use a Mustad 540 hook, size 4, with no more than 3kg line. The best baits are beach worms, bloodworms, pink nippers and pipis.

The rig used to catch whiting is shown below:

Tailor Tailor can be caught off the beach, in the estuaries, or off the rocks by either spinning or trolling with lures. If spinning, use ganged hooks (size 4/0 upwards) and whole pilchards of garfish as bait. They can also be caught using a bobby cork with the bait suspended below it.

Use a 12 foot rod with 12 to 20 pound line and no sinker. It is best to fish for tailor in the early morning or the late afternoon, and they can be caught all year round.

Hairtail Hairtail a primarily a winter fish with their season starting around Anzac day. The best places to fish for hairtail are the little bays and coves in Cowan Waters, but they have also been caught in good numbers off Box Head and Clifton Gardens.

Fish in water 20 to 50 feet deep, and use only live baits of yellowtail, etc on 20 pound line. Berley using bread and minced fish – this is not to attract the hairtail, but to attract the fish that the hairtail feed on.

Be careful when you get them in the boat as they have very big, very sharp teeth, which have been known to take a finger off. Despite this, they are delicious eating.

Luderick Also known as blackfish, they can be caught off the rocks or in the estuaries on the run in or run out tides all year round. The run out tide is usually the best however, and the bigger fish are caught during the winter.

Using the rig in the picture below, try a variety of depths (by varying the position of the stopper knot) until the bait is just above the bottom.

The bait used to fish for blackfish is green weed in the estuaries and cabbage off the rocks. Green weed can be collected in drains, etc, near the spot you are fishing. Get the longest strands you can, as this will make it easier to put on the hook. Cabbage is picked off the rocks where the fish are caught.

It is almost always necessary to berley for blackfish. In the estuaries, mince some weed and mix it in a bucket with sand. Let handfuls of this mixture float on the current down to the fish. On the other hand, when fishing off the rocks, pick a few pieces of cabbage and let them wash off the rocks into the water with the receding waves.

The gear used to fish for blackfish is as follows:

Line 0.5 to 1.5kg Rods 3m for estuaries and 4.2m for the rocks Reels side-cast, centre pin, or egg-beater (not as popular) Hooks estuary – French or viking size 6 to 10 rocks - French or viking size 4 to 8

Mulloway Also known as jewfish, these can be caught in the estuaries or off the beach, mainly in summer (September through to March/April) at the top of the tide and the first of the run out in the week up to the full moon. Pick the tide with the smallest difference between high and low water.

Use yellowtail or slimy mackerel, either live or frozen, and suspend the bait 2 to 3m off the bottom on an 8/0 to 10/0 hook on 40 to 60lb line.

When putting the hook in the bait, make sure that the set of the hook is up so as to better your chances of a hook-up.

Squid or cuttlefish can also be used as bait on a size 8/0 hook.

The best place to fish is in the Hawkesbury River in areas with deeper water and baitfish. Also look for eddies. Berley with pieces of fish left over from previous trips.

Mulloway are best fished from a boat, but can be fished from the shore. Generally, when targeting mulloway, the bigger the bait, the bigger the fish you will catch.

Rigs used to catch mulloway include:

Prawning and Crabbing Prawning - is best done on a dark night 3 to 4 days after the full moon from September to April. The best places to prawn are sand flats, particularly those at The Entrance, although Lake Narrabeen is also worth a try.

To catch the prawns, use a prawning net and a powerful waterproof torch. Walk in the water, scooping up the prawns in the net after you see them in the light. All you will see of the prawn are its eyes as they reflect the light.

Once caught, keep the prawns alive in shallow water in a fish box. Clean them by putting them in fresh water – this makes them disgorge all the rubbish from their systems, and then cook them in boiling fresh water for 3 to 4 minutes in 1 pound lots. Salt them to taste after cooking.

Crabbing - in Sydney will primarily land you with mud crabs or blue swimmer crabs. Catch them by using either a ‘witches hat’ or crab box. Crabs can be caught at about the same time as prawns, but are just as active during the day as they are at night.

Use a piece of meat or a fish frame as bait in either the net of the box. They can also be caught on the sand flats using a spotlight.

Clean the mud crabs before cooking them. Putting them to sleep in the freezer for about half an hour and then cracking the shell open and removing the rubbish inside is the best way to achieve this.

Legal sixes for the crabs mentioned here are:

· Mud crab – 8.5 cm from the front of the shell to the back

· Blue swimmer – 6.5 cm from the front of the shell to the back.

Should you catch any female crabs with eggs, consider returning them to the water to continue breeding.

Different Fishing Environments The Western Rivers The best time to fish any of the western rivers is when they are rising. This is usually after rain upstream or if a dam has been opened. The heights of the rivers at certain points along their courses are listed in the papers and these should be checked before deciding on a location to fish.

Always fish within 3 to 5 m of the bank, using a 5/0 hook and fairly heavy line. This is especially the case when going after Murray Cod and Golden Perch. Limit the lead you use to maybe a split-shot, but ideally you should use no lead at all. The best times to fish are in the early morning or late afternoon/night.

Most of the banks of the rivers are on private property, so you can’t fish there unless you get permission from the property owner first. On the other hand, find the Travelling Stock Routes (TSR’s). These are public land, and although most times this is a very narrow strip of land, when it gets to a river, it will be anything from 3 to 4 miles along it’s banks. The locations of the TSR’s can be gained from the Environmental Resources commission in the area you want to fish.

Species most likely to be caught in the western rivers are the Murray Cod, European Carp, Golden Perch, freshwater catfish, and the silver perch.

Murray Cod - a very territorial fish, the Murray cod will most likely be found where there is a tree, a stump, or some other structure in the river. If using live baits, the fish will strike immediately, but with dead baits, the fish will often play with them for a while.

Golden Perch – will normally be found in the sandy, reedy areas of the river.

Silver Perch – will be found in more or less the same places and conditions as the golden perch.

Freshwater Catfish – can be caught anywhere in the rivers

The most common baits used to catch these varieties of fish are:

Garden Worms – dig them out of the ground and put the whole worm on the hook by pushing the body of the worm along the hook. Leave a bit hanging over the end of the hook to get some movement.

Small Native Fish – can be caught at the location where you plan to fish.

Bogong Moth Larvae – are found in holes in the ground near trees. Use the inside of a speedo or brake cable to get them out.

Witchetty Grubs – found in the lower trunk and root systems of particular trees.

Fresh Water Shrimps – caught by putting a bucket or drum with small holes punched in the bottom in the water. Put a cake of sunlight soap into the bucket or drum, along with a rock (to stop the bucket floating away) and leave overnight.

Yabbies – are found in the dams, billabongs, and rivers. Use a piece of cotton to which has been tied a piece of meat or bread. When you bring them to the shore, use a landing net to get them out of the water.

Frogs – most commonly found in the bark of the ironbark tree.

Beach Fishing The best times to fish the beach, regardless of the seasons, is from the top of the tide down at dusk or dawn, in the gutters found along the beach.

There are two type of beach – the summer beach and the winter beach. They are quite different from one another and these differences are explained next.

Summer beaches have what are called ‘constructive waves’, meaning that the sand is being pushed back onto the beach from the ocean. This makes it a shallow beach in that the depth of the water increases slowly in the wash zone.

The best areas to fish the summer beach are along the edges of the parallel and perpendicular gutters appearing on the beach. Typically, pelagic fish are found in the deeper water of the perpendicular gutters, while the other varieties of fish are found in the shallower parallel gutters.

Winter beaches have what are known as ‘destructive waves’, meaning that sand is being pulled from the beach and deposited out to sea. This is typically at the line of the first breakers from the shore, making the gradient of the beach at the wash zone quite steep.

Again, the best areas to fish are in the gutters of the beach, with the same species appearing in the same locations within the gutters as for the summer beach.

The next diagram shows the general layout and water direction of gutters on the beaches:

The rigs to use when beach fishing are shown in the next diagram. The rig with the star sinker is best used in the parallel gutters to hold the line at a particular point, while still letting the bait be presented quite naturally.

Rock Fishing The best spots to fish off the rocks are where there is deep water close in with breakers over an offshore reef. Use the smallest lead that will allow you to get your bait out the required distance. Depending on the type of fish you are after will determine the breaking strain of the line you will use. This varies from 2kg for bream, etc, up to 20kg for the bigger, more powerful fish, like king fish and drummer.

Species likely to be encountered from the rocks are bream, trevally, luderick, drummer, jewfish and snapper.

The best baits to use are cunjevoi, garfish, pilchards, fresh prawns, cabbage, abalone gut, crabs, octopus and squid.

Essential gear when rock fishing is sand shoes with rock cleats or plates, a heavy rod and reel, a light rod and reel, spare line, sharp knife, bait bucket, keeper bag, small tackle box, and a torch. The most convenient way to carry all these items is in a rucksack.

Freshwater Fishing This type of fishing can be done in any of the water catchment areas or lakes around the country, except those that are used as domestic water catchment areas. Some of these are Blowering Dam at Tumut, Pejar Dam at Goulburn, and Glenbourne Dam at Muswellbrook. The best dam in terms of the amount of fish put in there by the Department Of Fisheries is Wyangala Dam.

There are essentially four ways to catch the fish in these impoundments: trolling with flatfish lures, spinning with lures, bait fishing, or fly-fishing. When spinning with lures, the bigger lures are not always as effective as the smaller ones, except perhaps when fishing for Australian Bass.

If you are using baits, float them at the edge of the muddy water near the shore – this is where the fish cruise past looking for food, which has been washed out of the bank. In particular, look for any point jutting out into the lake, or near a rocky shoreline.

The best baits in these conditions are dragonfly larvae and mud eyes. Dragonfly larvae are found floating in the water or attached to pieces of wood in the water, while mud eyes are found in the mud of the lake bottom.

Lure Fishing Technically, there is no fish that cannot be caught on a lure, although blackfish are possibly an exception. The art of lure fishing is mainly an exercise in trial and error. If a particular type of lure does not work, try a different style, colour, or size.

Lures are used by casting and retrieving. Use a light rod about 6 feet in length with 5 pound line and a spinning reel, bait caster, or overhead reel.

There are basically two types of lure – trolling and actioned lures.

Trolling Lures have no action and are dragged through the water behind the boat. When trolling offshore, move along the current lines, as this will increase your chances of a strike.

Actioned Lures move in a random way through the water when reeled in. These can either be deep diving or shallow diving.

When a fish strikes a lure, don’t tug suddenly on the line. Rather, work the fish back to the boat slowly.