Fishing: Storm stirs up hopes of better conditions

The southerly storm on Thursday and strong westerlies last weekend ensured reports of good catches were thin on the ground.

However, Jason “One For” Nunn from Fisherman’s Warehouse, Marks Point, was optimistic of conditions being the best they have been for a while come this weekend.

Nunn hoped offshore fishing would improve after fluctuating water temperatures in recent weeks have frustrated anglers looking to kick-start the game-fishing season. 

“There’s a big push of water coming down from the north and it should be off Swansea by this weekend,” he said.

“It will be interesting to see what happens because the water temp should be more constant, up around that 22-23 degree mark, out on the shelf.”

Closer to shore, he believed the burst of rain, wind and swell on Thursday should also help. 

“There wasn’t enough rain to induce a fresh but it gives the drains and high banks a bit of a flush out and that strong low should gee the fish up,” he said.

“The barometer will rise very quickly over the weekend and usually the fish come back on the bite pretty quick when that happens.” 

Raising hopes higher was the prospect of a prawn run to stimulate fishing.

”The highlight of the weekend will be that we’ve had a bit of rain and a big southerly blow, and that’s all going to work in well for the guys on the December prawn run,” he said on Thursday.

“This weekend is 7-10 nights after the full moon, and that’s when the prawn run happens, and it should be a good one.

“There were a fair few prawns out there in November but a big southerly blow like this, those prawns would have been moving last night up from the southern part of the Lake. I think over this next week there will be some really good fishing happening.”

Bream, whiting, jew and flathead remain the mainstays catches in estuaries and beach fishing. 

“There’s good bream in Swansea channel,” Nunn said.

“My young bloke had a fish for an hour last Sunday and got two beautiful whiting and a bream before the wind got him.

“And there’s quite a lot of bream in Salts Bay. If the sea is as big as they predict tomorrow, we may see some better bream catches because a lot of these will move in from the island to seek a bit of protection. That again will work in well with the prawn run.

“There’s nice whiting as well. My mate Michael Walker got seven beautiful whiting out in the channel two days ago on tube worms, just fishing off the shories.” 

Down Nelson Bay way, Chris Drake from Tackleworld Port Stephens expected fishing conditions to improve this week and said whiting, flathead, kings, squid and jew remained the better catches close to land. Offshore, he said there’s been “a few nice snapper on the inshore reefs when the boys have got out between the weather”.

“I think this week with the rain, the better tides and the moon, it should be a lot better,” he said.

“Last week, with the high tide in the middle of the day, around the full moon, it always goes a bit quiet.”

Nunn said flathead, kings and jew were also biting in the Lake.

“There’s a few jew getting caught in the Lake but not a lot of reports in the last few days because of the weather but this weekend could be a grand opportunity.”

Speaking of nice jew fish coming out of the Lake, a couple of former big-hitters of Maitland sport struck it large this week.

Kurt Humphreys, a former top-grade cricketer with Norths who once belted 185 against City, reeled in his first Lake Macquarie jew with help from mate Jon Runchel, an ex-Maitland and NSW Country rugby union prop.

Using a Samaki vibelicious lure on light gear, Humphreys snared the 80-centimetre beauty off Coal Point.

Troy Terrill was the big winner at the Charlestown Anglers’ November outing with a great catch of jew, flathead and bream.

The bonus species for the outing was flathead and Terrill got three in the 40-centimetre range as well as bream in the 30s on Lake Macquarie after scoring fresh squid near the dropover on the Friday night two weeks ago. He also caught and released 67cm and 74cm jew fish before keeping a 90cm specimen.

Sam Law was second, just in front of Brad Morton, with some decent flathead over the weekend. Morton had a 41cm whiting fishing with his son, Jye, and also headed up to Broughton with a mate and snared a 110cm king fish.

The club’s next outing is December 7-9 with a Christmas party at the weigh-in..

Fish of the week files were empty so Eva Stevenson’s entry for a nice flathead caught at Coon Island from early in the month was resurrected.

It’s a timely reminder in the run into Christmas to get your entries into the fishing@theherald.com.au. Who knows, you might score a Jarvis Walker tacklebox and Tsunami lure pack to put under the tree for someone special.