How to catch fish in the estuary from your boat

Whether it’s the size of your boat, the perilous state of the weather, a predisposition to seasickness, or just your preference, often we boaters are confined to fishing the estuary. But where do you find the fish?

Estuary is a term used broadly in this country. Strictly speaking, it is the mouth of a large river, where the tide meets the stream. That might be a harbour, bay, the river or its mouth, but it also encompasses all the structures, both natural and manmade, in these vast expanses of water ranging up to the tidal creeks.

Along the way, there are the river bends, sandy bays, mud flats, mangroves and creeks to consider. Heck, saltwater estuary fishing can take you from the fresh and brackish water reaches all the way to the sea and back again.

Herein the challenge for the keen Australian estuary fisher...

POPULAR PLAYGROUNDS
By virtue of their weather protection and calm waters, estuaries are popular playgrounds for everything and everybody from families frolicking off trailerboats to couples overnighting on cruisers, from tow sports pumping out big wakes to low-slung kayaks dipping the paddle. As such, estuaries are busy boating playgrounds shared by a lot of boats.

Boating traffic always brings challenges for anglers, especially those of use who wet a line on weekends. In addition, the sheer vastness of many estuaries present a challenge when it comes to finding fish. You can very easily sit there soaking a bait or flicking lures for zip because, well, because you aren’t fishing where the fish are swimming.

So we thought we would share with you 10 top spots in the estuary to find fish in your boat. We can guarantee that at one location or another, and probably most of these spots at some time, you will find fish for the frying or photographing and releasing.

ESTUARY BOATING GEAR
It really helps if your boat has a depth sounder to locate underwater structure, the balls of baitfish and, using the latest technology like side scanners, for pinpointing the bigger fish.

Make sure you have proper anchoring hardware and lower your anchor in the water quietly rather than letting the chain chatter over the gunwale.

An electric motor is another must-have for virtual anchoring and manoeuvring. Don't forget lights, and proper navigation lights, plus the requisite safety gear.

You will also need a live bait tank, landing net and a waterproof action camera.

TOP 10 ESTUARY FSHING SPOTS
Estuary Mouths: Fish the first few hours of the tide change, moving closer to the estuary mouth as the water flows out. On the run-in tide, the confluence of fresh ocean water and stagnant estuary water is a hot feeding ground. These tidelines near the estuary mouths are particularly good for feeding surface fish pushing into the estuary at high tide and working their way back out as the it drops. Always look for schools of feeding fish up top and wheeling birds around the estuary mouths, especially at first light. Troll diving minnow lures while you’re patrolling, but do check them often for the estuary weed that fouls on their hooks and ruins their action when trolling tide lines.

Headlands and Breakwalls: Around the estuary mouths, fish use the tidal flow wisely, conserving their energy to ambush baitfish, prawns and squid. Think big and use live baits or big lures worked down deep. Use your depth sounder to locate the prime feeding structures, edges and eddies around headlands and breakwalls. Anchor right of the edge of the underwater structure, where it meets the sand, and fish this edge during the tide changes. Headlands and breakwalls are the hot spots for big predator, but catching trophy fish on the anchor here is as much about boat positioning as anything else.

Rocky Points and Reefs: Progress inside the mouths of big rivers, bays and harbours and there are usually some fishy tidal headlands with rocky points and reefs extending into the estuary. These are hot fishing spots, up over the reef at high tide for smaller foraging fish, and back along the edges as they retreat and become prey on the falling tide. From barra to bream, the rocky estuary points, reefs and bars are hot fishing spots for active lure fishing and bait soaking.

Channel Markers, Poles and other Manmade Structures: Draw on the wealth of information embedded on boating maps to find key fishing spots. In particular, all those channel markers placed on the charts to indicate a change of water depth and often a great fishing spot. The bigger navigation markers can become fish-holding structures themselves. Remember that when tide is disrupted by a static object, the laminar flow creates turbulent flow characterised by little whirlpools. The upstream edge of the object, where the water first hits, has a low water pressure area that allows fish to hold station with minimum of effort. So when you drop anchor to fish a channel marker, pole or other manmade structure like an artificial reef make sure you are upcurrent of the feature to feed your baits back to it and the fish. The downstream side is often a dud.

Wharves and Piers: Of course, the land-based love their accessible fishing wharves and piers but boaters can score some great catches by fishing near these fish-attracting structures, too, especially where land access is restricted. Be mindful of private property and don’t pepper people’s moored boats with lures. But do work the shoreside structure in your search of fish. If nothing else, wharves and piers with lights are top spots to catch squid and live bait at night.

River Bends: A bend in a river looks like, well, it looks like just another bend in the river. Wrong. Two things are key here to finding fish. First, remember that the deepest water in a river bend is always on the outside of the turn. Second, look at the riverbank to gauge to gradient underwater. A bend on a floodplain will likely have a shallow alluvial seabed where the fish gather along small depth changes. But a riverbed in a steep valley bordered by cliffs is likely to be more dramatic, deeper, and often with rocky shores and sunken reefs. Still, the shallow sections of river bends can be very good for flathead, whiting and sand crabs.

Sandy Drop Offs: When it comes to key estuary fish that prefer to feed over soft bottom, species like the flat fish, whiting, crabs and so on, you need to work the sandy drop-offs on the falling tide. As fish retreat from the flats, the flathead lie in wait. Bounce lures around the sandy walls and work spinner baits and blades down into the channels. After a while, you can gather a terrific collection of hot river banks and bends that produce fish in certain tides and then stitch them together to create a top go-to lure-casting day.

Oyster Leases: There are some protocols to follow when fishing commercial leases and we’ve shared those with you in this article titled How to fish around oyster leases. Do read this before you venture into the ‘sticks and racks’. At high tide, these areas are absolutely swarming with fish, especially big bream. As the tide falls, fish their edges for flathead as well. The challenge here is that heavy tackle is needed to extract the fish from the oysters, yet you also need enough feel to cast light diving lures. Braided line and fluorocarbon leaders are essentials for this style of combat fishing.

Over the Flats and Weedbeds: As you progress further into the estuary, there are seagrass, weedbeds, sand and mud flats to explore. These are great bait-collecting grounds at low tide, but at high tide the fish swim over these same shallows to forage. You will need a finesse approach to trick the fish on the flats, although night fishing offers a bit more scope. With tackle and traces just go as light as you can,. Then use small lures that resemble the prawns, crabs and worms that pervade these feeding areas. Using small poppers on finesse tackle for whiting over the flats is a blast. Similarly, sight fishing to whiting with live nippers catches heaps. Don't anchor over seagrass meadows, but do fish their edges for flatties.

Creeks and Mangroves: Push back upstream even further and the mangrove-lined creeks come into play. In tropical locations they are all you see — mangrove stands as far as the tide runs. Fish the edges and casting or trolling parallel to the mangroves to land fish that you can actually extract from the tangled roots. Where you find a small ‘soak’ or creek draining off the mangrove stands is a hot spot — barra fishos know this only too well — especially as the tide turns and the small fish retreat back down these passageways.  Mangroves always have a high degree of fish and marine life so don't be afraid to fish in the deeper nearby channels at low tide. Drop a few crab traps and you might catch a muddy as well.

Put all that together and you can spend a lifetime, finding, chasing and catching fish in the estuaries. In fact, many do exactly this, using purpose-built bass, barra and bream boats to tap into the fantastic coastal estuary fishing we have around Australia.

With today’s lifelike lures, beautifully balanced light tackle, affordable fish-finding electronics and comfortable boats, powered with agreeable low-emissions outboards and electric motors, fishing the estuaries has never been more enjoyable and rewarding.