Weather Has The Fish Jumping
Illawarra Mercury
Friday December 17, 2004
AFTER a week of ultra humid weather, last Saturday and Sunday were just the opposite. We had two great fishing days and Brett Yearby from Kahanooka and his mate Graham Weeks from Bellambi, drifted the grounds off Port Kembla on Saturday for a good mixed bag of reef fish and some excellent-sized flathead.
A later visit to the tables at Shellharbour, found Dapto Citizens Bowling Club members, Roy Cox and Brian "Limbo" Lambert cleaning a good catch of flathead, pig fish and a stud snapper of 3kg. Limbo was at the cleaning tables again on Sunday, this time with a snapper of 5kg. Both fish were caught while drifting for flathead wide of Barrack Point to Shellharbour, and rumour has it the bigger red is a new club record for Limbo. Gavin from Deans Windang, says lake fishing has been great in the channel for bream and flathead just using white bait and prawns. Soft plastics are still working well along the edges of the lake, best spots being Mt Warrigal and Berkeley Point. Plenty of prawns were taken during the dark, with guys scooping up to 2kg in behind the caravan parks.Primbee has been productive for prawns, but you need to chase them around more.Beaches are working well with whiting off Warilla Beach close to the surf club, and some nice bream near the entrance of Little Lake.Rock fishing has seen still blackfish around Hill 60, with the odd trevally, using prawn baits.Kiama has had plenty of slimy mackerel, great for bait and some basic fun. There are just legal-size kingfish under the slimies so hang on if you hook up.Outside fishing has been mainly snapper around the islands. Todd Leech from Windang caught a 4.165kg flathead off Port Kembla, using strips of slimy.Some small kings were taking spinners off Shellharbour and a few bonito were in the schools with them. Water temp is running around 20 degrees.*** Bulli Workers Fishing club held their last fishing comp for the year on December 11-12.Four juniors fished hard with Brad Dawson winning the Leisure Coast Bait and Tackle.Jason Veale with Andrew Cornford caught the biggest fish of the day, a 1kg flathead and also won the BRE section. With the warmer water, the Bulli fishos didn't have to go far offshore to bring back good-sized flathead, trevally, leatherjackets, squire and morwong.Also caught were flounder, morwong, and groper.Their next comp will be held on January 8-9 and the weigh-in will be in the Workers Club barbecue area at 1.30pm on Sunday.*** Hayden from The Tackle Shop Shellharbour, reported fish everywhere. It seemed that over the weekend everyone who went out, whether it be land-based or deep sea, landed good bags of solid fish.Five-year-old Khan Carrol fished with his dad Paul and bought home a top bag including a couple of bream to 0.6kg. Eleven-year-old Myles and seven-year-old Tayla Williams fished with their dad Dave, around the washes at Bass Point.Myles had an absolute blinder with a bag of 11 fish including a swag of solid bream. Brian Rainbird easily out-fished a few mates (who will remain nameless to protect their egos) and caught a total of nine fish including snapper to 1kg, morwong to 1.15kg and flathead to 1.15kg to his mates total of zero.Brian's tactics included using fine diameter braid so that he could feel tentative bites where his mates were using thicker mono which didn't cut it in the conditions that prevailed. *** Tim from Angler, Marine & Sport Unanderra reported the flathead in the Shoalhaven are everywhere. Best spots are closer to the entrance rather than up river. Plastics still seem to be the way to go.There were good catches of snapper and mowies in Jervis Bay and, yes - on jigged plastics!!.A couple of large kingfish were sighted, just cruising around so the time might be right for a burley trail and some livies.
© 2004 Illawarra Mercury
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