Sydney Nov 2008

[Snatcher]

Coming down your way next year for my daughters wedding (21 Nov 2008)

Will be based in Sydney for at least a month and plan to do a bit fishing whilst over there. Any of you guys up for a meet/fish/a few cool ones?

Also looking to book a big game charter trip or two. Any info on this will be most appreciated. I plan to beat my pb of 182 lbs


Cheers lads

[lucky]

Hi Snatcher- I'm from Sydney originally. You've got plenty of time to gen up on fishing in and around Sydney but here's some info on a place called Berowra Waters in Sydney. I haven't been there for many years but in those days we used to fish the Hawkesbury River which is a fair size river about 45 mins drive north of the city centre. If your daughter happens to live in the northern suburbs you may not be that far away. It's estuary fishing with a lot of saltwater species found in the river. We used to hire a dinghy with a small outboard for the day from the marina at Berowra Waters. It was quite cheap back then but I think they now hire aluminium open boats called "tinnies" which is slang for can of beer in Oz. The boats are fitted with canopies, lifejackets and a 6hp outboard and don't require a licence. They charge about AUS$120 these days - about £52 for an nine hour day from 8am to 5pm. Gas is included in the price - still pretty good if you can manage to split it between two or three of you. Bait, ice and fuel were available at the marina. It's a good idea to take a packed lunch and some cold drinks. You will probably need a car to get there as it's inside Ku-ring-gai Chase National Park. There is a rail station at Berowra and I reckon it's about 4 or 5k down to the marina itself so maybe you could catch a cab. Being surrounded by national park Berowra Waters still remains a beautiful and relatively unspoilt spot. When you fish there you're pretty much completely surrounded by gum trees. Common fish species included bream, flathead, flounder and leatherjackets - all good eating. There's also some large jewfish caught in certain spots in the Hawkesbury proper which has a pretty strong tidal run. The usual size for these is 2 to 7kg but 30kg monsters are caught fairly regularly. We always used to fish with bait which was mainly fresh prawns and sometimes beach worms but I believe they fish for flathead these days quite successfully with lures. You would normally also catch the odd Yellowtail a small fish which were good for bait. Another fish to target in the river is luderick or blackfish - the bait for these is green weed wound around the hook. You can either fish Berowra Creek - a good size body of water itself or head down it to the main stream of the Hawkesbury. Here's a couple of links:

http://www.sportsfish.com.au/fishing...wra-creek.html

http://www.berowrawaters.net/

Here's a link to a map of Berowra Creek where it joins the Hawkesbury with a number of fishing spots marked.

http://www.marinews.com/fishing_deta...p?recordid=374

Also here's a link to some guidebooks on fishing in Australia. Ther's a couple which focus specifically on marks in Sydney. The Fishing Guide to Sydney - Hawkesbury maybe helpful as it would probably give information on a lot of shore marks in Sydney that are accessible by public transport. I believe a lot of fishing is now done in the harbour and on the Parramatta River which runs into the harbour. This wasn't the case many years ago due to pollution so I don't know much about marks on these waters now that the Parramatta river and the harbour are much cleaner. Another river we used to fish was the Georges River which is in the southern suburbs of Sydney for much the same variety of fish as we caught in the Hawkesbury.

http://www.guidesgalore.com.au/defau...=97&ParentID=3

and here's some Aussie fish:

http://www.amonline.net.au/fishes/fi...calcaratus.htm

Good luck and have a great time in Sydney mate.

[Snatcher]

Thanks lucky some good info there mate Really looking forward to the trip

[PanamaJack]

As well as Lucky I recall that Toby (Kingfish) spent three months on that East coast of Oz essentially shore fishing. There's some good information and additional useful links on this thread - http://www.worldseafishing.com/forum...ghlight=Sidney.

In terms of breaking your PB I can't imagine that's likely to be a problem. Wasn't it off the 'Heads' at Sydney that Zane Grey landed a Great White all those years ago? But seriously Sharks and some Marlin should be present. If you want to smash that PB out of sight though perhaps somewhere slightly further north, off Queensland's Gold coast, might be the place to target? Blue Marlin 'out wide' and Tiger Sharks in numbers. Certainly a 'four figure' specimen's possible with a Tiger.
Dave

[lucky]

Snatcher here's another link to a report on fishing spots in Sydney.

http://www.fishingmonthly.com.au/Are...feb-shoey.html

I'll post up any others I come across.

You could also look around the Shore Fishing Australia site...

http://www.shorefishingaustralia.com.au/

Here's a link to one of their pages on Sydney.

http://www.shorefishingaustralia.com...ion&regionID=6

and there's also the Fishing Australia site...

http://www.fishingaustralia.com.au/

[Snatcher]

Thanks guys,am really looking forward to Oz and my daughters wedding and some good fishing

[lucky]

Also looking to book a big game charter trip or two. Any info on this will be most appreciated. I plan to beat my pb of 182 lbs

As far as this goes Snatcher you might like to check out the Jigging & Popping forum.

http://www.verticaljigging.com/

Most of the info is centered on the States but they do have an Oceania forum with some info on offshore fishing in Oz. One of the regular posters berniek lives in Sydney. A few of the other guys live in Byron Bay on the northern NSW coast. They don't run as big as your skate but you might like to consider some jigging for kingfish off Sydney while you're there. You should be able to get a recommendation for a reputable charter boat off the site.