Central Coast

CENTRAL COAST Jamie Robley

As I sit in the comfort of my office chair, typing up this month’s column, a vicious southerly wind is racing straight up from Antarctica. The ocean swell is rapidly on the rise and pretty much turning into a giant washing machine, so this isn’t exactly the sort of day you’d be getting into a few fish.

Looking at the bigger picture though, we’ve enjoyed some pretty awesome weather in recent months. Some nice big high pressure systems have slowly made their way over the eastern states, bring

The author with a very solid Tuggerah Lakes bream. Despite the naysayers complaining the lakes are netted out and full of stinky weed, the reality is there is some excellent fishing to be enjoyed in all of the three lakes. prolonged stable and rather sunny patches. This sort of synoptic pattern also means the nights get a bit extra nippy, but I’ll take those colder nights if it means better days for fishing!

The lakes have been going quite well this year and that’s very likely due to the extra rain through summer and flooding back in March. Such rains generally wipe out most angling options around here for a few weeks, but in the long term it contributes to the health of our waterways and the fishing normally improves a lot down the track. That’s basically what happened, so now we’re reaping the benefits.

While bream fishing in the lakes and Brisbane Waters hasn’t been what I’d call spectacular, it has been reasonably good, with some quality fish on offer. During the early stages of winter a large percentage of bream head out to sea for their annual spawning duties along the rocks, beaches and estuary mouths. However, for whatever reason, some larger bream remain inside and some even venture further up the feeder creeks.

So although things can slow down and seem a bit tough at times, if you’re into bream I can highly recommend persisting this month. Firstly, it may be worth concentrating more during the afternoon rather than early in the morning, as water temps can rise slightly through the day. This is often just enough to get the bream a bit more active. Secondly, use lighter line or longer leaders when lure casting. Perhaps consider the option of fluorocarbon mainline. There’s no need to go super light; a quality 2kg line and well tied knots will be enough to deal with most bream in most places, if you’re careful.

Unlike the warmer months, there’s no point looking for bream in the shallows at this time of year. By that, I mean water less than 1m deep. Mostly, I would recommend mid depths for bream right now, and that generally translates to between 1-5m.

Another tip is to look for bream a bit further out in the open, as opposed to being tucked hard up against solid structure. Sure, there will always be a few fish right next to a log, some rocks or a bridge pylon, but if you’re casting close to such features without any luck, try putting in some effort casting out in the middle and see what happens.

Luderick are on the move at the moment and I’ve seen anglers getting into a few in various spots from Woy Woy in the south to Budgewoi in near the mouth. It’s largely a matter of keeping an eye out and being prepared to move around sometimes.

Luderick are also well worth chasing off the rocks right now. Typically though, the challenges faced by rock hoppers in the middle of winter are finding a pocket of suitable rock fishing conditions between those dead flat calm spells and periods of big swell, which is precisely what’s happening while I’m at the desk typing. So those wanting

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caught deep jigging with soft vibes or soft plastics. If you’re going to use soft plastics I like the 5” or 7” Gulp Jerk Shads rigged on 3/8-1/2oz jigheads with a 3/0-4/0 hook. With 7” lures you can get away with a 5/0 jighead because there’s a fair chance you’ll catch a school jew. The two species hang out in the same zone and chase the same prey.

As the saying goes, ‘find the bait, find the fish’, but not all bait schools are equal. You want to find a school that looks ragged or disrupted, because that indicates it’s being harassed by predators. Look for bumps or big arches on the sides, and lines and zigzags where the bait is being smashed. This aggressive feeding creates a natural berley, releasing a steady stream of chopped up whitebait and frogmouth pillies.

There’s not a lot of data on tailor; their numbers have been spasmodic coastally for a while. On a recent trip I encountered quite a lot of tailor in the lake but they were only 35-40cm. That might be the next recruitment of young fish, but we don’t really know. We need more anglers tagging fish to find out. If you think you’d like to try tagging, contact the DPI. It’s very rewarding and interesting to see where your tagged fish end up, and how much they have grown.

At this time of year, trolling is the most effective way to catch tailor in the lake itself. The deeper lures in particular are working the best, such as the Rapala Deep Tail Dancer (TDD11). It’s one of the most effective tailor lures around, mainly because it can dive down to 9m; with the lake floor being a fairly constant 10m depth you want a lure that stays down there. A lot of anglers run two lures, one down deep and another a bit shallower, so they don’t get tangled when they turn around. If you Google ‘tailor Lake Macquarie Butfield’ you can watch a great video I did with Dave where he and I are using Tail Dancers for them. We provide tips and show how the bait looks on the sounder so that viewers know what to look for.

When trolling for tailor, the most common bycatch species are mulloway and flathead, and you can pick up a few small snapper as well.

Plenty of Australian salmon are around at the moment, both in the lake at Salts Bay and along our coastal beaches, particularly the BelmontBlacksmith stretch. They will hang around for most of the winter. There are some really nice gutters along the beaches for both salmon and tailor, and it’s great fun for kids (or adults) to load up a beach rod and land a 3kg salmon.

There have been quite a lot of reports of luderick (blackfish) at locations like Lucys Wall and the bridge in the river. Weed has been a bit difficult to get, however. If you’re going to come and have a crack you need to try to get some weed first. Weed flies are incredibly popular, and work well, but you still want weed for berley. I like to use a fly on the top hook, with a short leader to the fly, and on the bottom hook I rig a natural bait with a longer leader. On some days you’ll catch more than 50% of your fish on the weed fly. This could be because the weed fly is about the size of the berley that you’re mixing with the sand. As the sand/weed berley sinks over your float, the 1” long weed fly looks the north. The Entrance is in the middle of the Central Coast and it’s probably the main luderick hub in our region. Within the places mentioned, the fish can move around a bit and one week they may be concentrated more in one spot, then they’ll move onto another spot the next week. For example, at The Entrance they may be biting well near the boatshed for a while and then go quiet, and the following week fish will start showing up more over in the northern channel or down to fish the rocks really have to keep an eye on weather forecasts a lot this month.

Salmon are one of the main species that show up along the rocks, beaches and inshore strip at this time of year. They’ll also enter the estuaries, as I’ve recently seen way down the bottom end of Lake Macquarie. Mostly though, we can expect plenty of sambos close in around rocks and beaches. With a bit of luck there will also be some bream, tailor and jewies hanging around with them!

Kai was happy with this nice tuna. just like the 1” long pieces of berley. Remember that your float should be weighted just slightly over neutral buoyancy.

Chasing luderick is very rewarding, and we are seeing more young and middle-aged anglers taking it up. If you can snag a morning trip mid-week, it’s lovely in the Swansea channel, with almost no boat traffic. The runout tide tends to fish best here. The fish go into the troughs, gutters and holes on the low tide, and that’s a good time to have a crack at them. However, up on areas like Lucys Wall and up around Swansea bridge the luderick anglers do catch a lot of fish on the high tide. It’s really up to you.

When it comes to bream, you can catch them all through winter, but they tend to bite better in the evenings rather than through the day. I recommend using really oily baits like mullet gut, strips of mullet, pilchards or even Hawkesbury prawns. Just rug up, take a beanie and a thermos of coffee, and you’ll be good. • Fisherman’s Warehouse Tackle World has a large range fresh and frozen bait as well as a huge range of rods, reels, lures and accessories. They also sell and service outboard motors, and have a competitively-priced selection of new and second-hand boats. The friendly staff are all experienced local anglers, and they’re always happy to share their knowledge, whether you’re a novice or experienced angler. Drop in for a chat at 804 Pacific Highway, Marks Point, or give them a call on (02) 4945 2152. You can also find them on Facebook, or check out their website at www. fishermanswarehouse.com.au.

There will be no shortage of salmon along the rocks and beaches over the coming weeks. This one was photographed near Wybung Head before being released, but they can turn up almost anywhere from Catherine Hill Bay down to Patonga at this time of year.

The western side of the bridge at The Entrance and the adjacent boat shed area should be worth investigating for luderick this month.