Forster

Flatties hammering plastics

FORSTER Luke Austin

August is a very underrated month for fishing in the wonderful Forster Tuncurry region. Despite the average weather conditions there is actually a smorgasbord of piscatorial wonders waiting to be caught!

We have had consistent rainfall all winter which has made for very good fishing in Wallis Lake. Luderick are fishing particularly well at the moment and can be found all over the place. The bigger schools of ocean-run fish seem to be holding on the southern rock wall, down around the bridge pylons, and throughout the oyster leases you can see from the bridge known as ‘The Paddock’. The fish are feeding very well at the moment and will happily take string weed and weed flies, however cabbage weed seems to be their favourite.

The local bream fishers have been enjoying some red-hot winter fishing over the past month or so. The fish have spread out now and there have been some great fish landed from all over the estuary system. For size, it’s still very hard to beat the hard structure situated in the lower section of the estuary, areas like the rock walls, bridge and oyster leases are still holding more than enough good fish for a feed.

August is one of the prime months for ‘bread and butter’ type fishing on the local stones. Tossing a

Tommy Freeman with a lovely winter red.

There are some cracking flathead about this month, like this one Roberta snagged while bream fishing. loads of huge fish which are only too willing to take a lightly weighted bait or soft plastic. The weed beds and flats further up into the system are starting to produce great numbers of fish, but most fish are on the small side still.

The one thing that the weed beds and sand flats around Coomba Park and Wallis Island are producing loads of are good sized flathead! These areas and the flats and drop-offs down toward Pacific Palms are holding great numbers of flathead up to 65cm, and they are hammering plastics and hardbodied lures. I have also had some great reports from the Jonnel Park area, The Paddock and even as far down as the back of the Rockpool net. These winter fish down near the mouth of the river are absolute suckers for small soft and hard vibes and 3”-4” soft plastics, and while you may not experience a red-hot 50 fish session you should manage to snag peeled prawn, crab or bit of cunje into a likely looking wash is awesome fun and a sure-fire way of landing a tasty mixed bag of black drummer, bream, luderick and groper. Make sure you throw a few metal lures in the kit as well because there can be some explosive tailor fishing to be had at times this month, and you just never know what other predators may be about…

The local beaches have been very hot and cold of late but most anglers are managing to find the odd fish. Tailor and salmon are being taken regularly off most beaches but are Leroy with a typical August kingfish.

definitely fishing better on baits just after dark. Bream are still plentiful along 9 Mile Beach and there has been the odd nice whiting and dart starting to turn up. Offshore fishing has been awesome lately. Snapper have been caught all over the place and in fairly good numbers. The shallow water fishery (10-20m) has been fairly consistent; while there haven’t been huge numbers of fish caught, the fish that are holding in the shallows are of a good size. There have been quite a few fish up over the 70cm mark caught on plastics recently, and plenty that couldn’t be stopped! Those boats fishing out a little further in 25-70m have had the most success. It hasn’t really mattered whether you go north or south, and those fishing baits have had the most success. Along with a handful of perfect tablesized snapper, anglers have filled the icebox with some cracking pearl perch, trag and big flathead. • Luke is the owner of Great Lakes Tackle - your ‘local’ bait and tackle store. They only sell the best brands and offer sound, friendly advice on where you can go to land your next trophy fish while visiting the wonderful Great Lakes region! They are open 7 days in the main street of Tuncurry, ph: 02 6554 9541, or find them on Facebook to see what they have been up to!

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From page 60 have been doing well, as have the anglers fishing the Camden Haven walls. August can be painful with the westerly winds, and can really clear the water, especially down the front of the system, so if you have a boat some good luderick fishing can be found in Limeburners Creek on the Hastings.

In other news, Lake Cathie after some heavy seas has remained open and at time of writing has a good opening. This will be beneficial and should make the fishing good over coming months. It would be great to see a good run of prawns and whiting this summer. OFFSHORE

Offshore anglers have had some top snapper fishing in recent times, with plenty of 1-3kg fish present and the odd bigger fish. The local charter boats have been bringing in good catches of squire, pearl perch and flathead plus the odd mulloway, so if you don’t have a boat it’s worth checking them out for your offshore fishing. For those heading out boating, both northern and southern grounds are worth trying as there seems to be fish on most spots. Enjoy the last cold month, rug up and get fishing!

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