It seldom gets better than this for anglers as the winter bream have now come on the bite.
Fish caught in the 30 cm plus range is standard, and most coastal sites seem to be producing bream. Shore-based anglers can get into the action at Cleveland Point on a high tide.
Raby Bay is also a great place to catch quality bream in the evenings.
I used to fish the rock walls at the Raby Bay Boulevard Park. When land based fishing off the rocks, use unweighted baits with only a split shot as a weight if the current is running strongly.
Cast up current and let the line drift towards the wall. Use small soft plastics on the lightest jig head or small baits of peeled prawn or strips of pilchard.
Most often the fish will take the lure or bait very close to the rocks.
The snapper fishing season is also exceptional, with most anglers catching a feed.
You can catch snapper on any of the local spots in the bay.
If fishing during the day at the artificial reef systems, try and find an area away from the heavy boat traffic. Drift until you find a patch of baitfish or squid, then anchor up-current and drift plastics or baits towards the area where you saw them.
The recently dredged channel at the Victoria Point boat ramp is producing mulloway on live baits.
A great land-based option is to catch poddy mullet at the ramp and cast into the channel for these fish.
Make sure you are considerate of people launching and retrieving boats.
The angler of the week is Harley Taylor Willmer. Starting early for a 4.30am morning fishing session, Harley found he had a flat tyre.
After changing the tyre in the freezing cold, he eventually arrived at his fishing spot.
As he was heading down to the water he wondered why his kayak was so heavy, finding it was half full of water as the hatch had snapped off and was lost.
To top it all of his sounder was also not working and his paddle snapped in half.
But it was all worth it in the end, paddling with only half a paddle, Harley caught his personal best snapper of 84cm and 11lb on a 10 lb setup.
With a strong current, it took a lot of skill to bring in such a fish.
Another snapper of 56cm was netted and then it was time to head back in.
Harley, thanks for sharing your experience, and well done.
Those are great fish that you have caught, especially in such tough circumstances.
If you have any fishing questions or photographs of your catch, contact Michael at desdavidmichael@gmail.com
