Not long now until the school holidays with Christmas just around the corner. Let's hope for some good summer fishing weather for everyone to enjoy.
In the rivers, the lower parts of the Hastings River in Port Macquarie continues to fish very well for bream and flathead, in the Macleay River there has been plenty of solid whiting activity over the past week especially in Clybucca Creek and in the Camden Haven River there has been a mulloway caught off the breakwalls ranging between school size to fifteen kilos.
The mud crab scene is starting to fire with reports that further up in the Macleay River and in Lake Cathie producing some tasty crabs for fishos just in time for Christmas lunch.
On the beaches, whiting numbers are improving in those protected corners and if we see a break in that swell there should be some great fish about.
In with the whiting there are a few nice bream, dart and flathead especially further north on Gap Beach at South West Rocks with worms and pipis as the bait of choice. For mulloway fishos, there were a few reports of fish down south around the beaches at Diamond Head and North Haven.
For the rock fishos, best reports are from the northern headlands around South West Rocks and Crescent Head. During the week reports that there were a few luderick, drummer and the odd large kingfish.
As we head into summer, we should start to see some pelagic catches off the rocks now the water is starting to warm up. Just make sure you take time to prepare some heavy fishing gear and hang on.
Offshore fishing is starting to really fire, for the boaties that manage to sneak out to sea in the breaks of the weather during the week reported some great catches of snapper, kingfish and mahi mahi. Snapper have been around in reasonable numbers for this time of year, with some nice fish caught down south off Laurieton and Crowdy Head.
A few fantastic catches of mahi mahi were caught over the weekend on Port Macquarie and Hathead FADs with live yakkas and slimey mackerel the bait of choice. For the game fishos I did hear a few rumours of a few black marlin caught off Trial Bay Gaol and there were some great reports of striped and blue marlin caught out wide between Hathead and Port Macquarie.
The annual Laurieton United Service Club Family Fishing Bonanza is on again next year and is scheduled for the January 6, 7 and 8. This is a fantastic family friendly fishing competition with more than six thousand dollars in cash and prizes. To find out more information head the LUSC Fishing Club Facebook page.
