With winter well upon us now, it is surprising how well our waterways and outside reef areas are fishing, even though the water temperature, for this time of year, is higher than normal.

The outside reef areas, specifically Esmerelda on the north east corner and Broken Bay wide, are fishing well for big snapper around the 5kg mark. These reefs are also producing some excellent trevally in good numbers. The best way to attack the snapper at the moment seems to be in the early morning or just on dusk with plenty of burly and large (I mean large) strip baits or whole squid as the larger baits seem to get down to the bigger fish before the leather jackets devour it.

Top local angler, Lindsay Reiny, has accounted for some excellent snapper, upto 6kg, at Long Reef over the past few weeks. Lindsay reckons that most of the fish he has taken here have been in close on the White rock and along the wall of the reef. Fish light for the best results, you may lose a few fish but in shallow water this is the most productive way to fish. Some of the larger reds have been taken on soft plastics, such as Gulp 7" jerk shads and Slam 5" shads.

Some excellent bags of sand flathead have been taken by the local Narrabeen Sands and Narrabeen RSL members with good size bags of lizards being weighed in at both clubs. Top spots seem to be the long drift at North Narrabeen, as well as the Mona Vale Hospital drift and in front of the surf club house behind the break at Palm Beach.

Other areas worth trying for a mixed bag of fish, including leatherjackets, morwong and the odd large greenback tailor are Boulders Reef and East Reef. Trolling in close at Avalon and upto Newport Reef with Rapala or Halco hard leady lures has produced several kingfish around the 2 to 4 kg range.

Narrabeen Lake continues to produce well for this time of year. The water in the lake is much warmer than usual and this has had a great effect, with local anglers taken a few decent size jew fish. One outstanding fish was taken by young Brett Stapleton of North Narrabeen which was just over 14kgs, and he backed this up with another in the 5kg range which he released. Brett caught the larger fish using 10 lb lines and fresh large Hawkesbury prawns as bait.

If you are looking for a fun easy day out with the kids or for a change, the lake provides some excellent form of light fishing spots, such as the Wakehurst Parkway, the Boatshed area on the eastern side of the lake and the caravan park area near the Ocean street bridge. These areas are continuing to product many species of good quality fish, including bream, tailor, mullet and the odd jewfish. The lake also produces some excellent fly fishing along the sand flats and at the back of the lake. Col Buckley regularly bags excellent mullets and bream on the fly.

I must say that the beaches are really luring some quality fish at the moment, with a real bonus of large winter whiting, some around the 800 to 900 gram mark. These are top quality fish and are best taken during the low tides using live beachworms or pippies. The larger whiting tend to congregate in the gutters or holes at low tide and are easier to find. Always try to use as little weight as possible and extra light line when fishing the surf for winter whiting.

There have been several reports of jewfish from the Northen end of the peninsula with a 7kg and 9kg jewies taken at the northern end of Newport beach, Avalon and southern corner of Palm Beach. There have also been reports of huge salmon being caught off Mona Vale, Curl Curl and North Narrabeen beaches. Catching salmon is a fantastic experience and they are not too difficult to target. Fish nice deep gutters and good quality bait to catch these great fighters.

My young bloke, Marc Jnr, has been having a ball on the kingies and large tailor from around Barrenjoey, Lion Island and Maitland Reef areas. Marc and several of his mates have landed Kingies upto 8kgs this past few weeks with small Cabia amongst the fish. Several ways to target these kingies is by using fresh squid, floating baits or flicking large soft plastics, such as pearl white jerk shads.

Tight Lines

Mark Ternen