Port Macquarie News - Tuesday 30 December 1969
Holiday Weather Perfect
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
More than 20,000 holiday makers are enjoying delightful summer weather, warm water in the surf, and good fishing on the beach and in the river, at Port Macquarie.
Big crowds are also enjoying outdoor holidays at Lake Cathie, Bonny Hills, on the Camden Haven seaboard at North Haven, Dunbogan and Laurieton, and at Point Plomer to the north.
Happily, almost "accident free" is the report from all centres, and police report an appreciated absence once again of any hoodlum element.
The biggest gathering of holidaymakers in one group is on Caracamp inside the southern breakwall at Port Macquarie - one of the most delightfully situated and best-known camp areas on the east coast of Australia.
There approximately 4.000 people are enjoying it all - swimming, fishing, playing golf and bowls, and visiting the many attractions in the town and district.
Camping grounds in the Flynn's Beach area, at Settlement Point, and delightfully situated on the river bank at Hibbard, bring the total under canvas in Port Macquarie to close to 8.000 people.
What's Biting?
Whether a fisherman has success or failure depends largely on his skill, but it helps to be in the right place with the right bait, so with the following tips - good fishing. Flathead and sand whiting are most abundant at the moment.
The whiting are taking worms, the flathead mainly white bait and also green prawns and mullet.
Good catches of whiting 10-15 fish per outing, measuring up to 12" (one fish tipped the scales to 1 lb. neat) are reported from the sand spits opposite at North Shore, and on the North Beach opposite the Broken Bit ranch, and north of the entrance. Flathead are thick at the northern end of the back channel.
One fisherman came home with 50 good size flathead last week, from the north wall, especially around the coal wharf, down the channel around Settlement Point. Drifting here ensures a good catch.
The weed banks at the mouth of Limeburners Creek are harbouring good flathead. For the flathead enthusiast who wants to sit on the bank Settlement Point is the place. Bream have started to bite the last few days.
A good catch of eight bream weighing l1/2i lb to 3 lb. was taken from the North Wall on Sunday. The bream are biting on yabbies, worms, prawns and pippies.
Black fish are being caught from the breakwall and from the tide gauge on the North Shore with green weed. Shovel-nose sharks and stingrays are providing exciting sport for fishermen in the river. The keener sportsmen are fishing for sharks from the end of the breakwall.
Lake Cathie prawns are now running, so there will be plenty of green prawns available for fishermen.
Two grand-daddy lobsters were caught yesterday in thirty feet of water by Port Macquarie skin diver, John Steep.
Each is around 15 pounds in weight and with current prices of almost $2 per pound, the two lobsters are worth almost $60.
John caught them bare handed in a hole off Port Macquarie. He said he saw thousands of tiny lobsters, ranging from 3 inches upwards, in the hole.