Home turf advantage

The Port Hacking river in southern Sydney is a trailerboat owner's dream. Flanked on one side by Australia's oldest national park, it boasts a wonderland of tranquil beaches, sandflats and clean, clear water. The entrance to the river is shallow at low tide but not dangerous, and the six boat ramps allow easy access to all who wish to ski, fish and explore this unique system.

I spend most of my spare time on this river. It offers diverse fishing with all forms of estuary angling available.

Within minutes of leaving the ramp you can be outside chasing salmon, kingfish, drummer, bonito and even tuna or marlin.

During the warmer months of the year, there are plenty of options available.

With dawn and dusk the prime bite times for most species, it is important you aim to be at your best spot at least an hour before these times.

TIDAL FLOW
The tides play a vital role in deciding where your intended species will be located. For instance, one of my favourite whiting spots has next to no water over it at low tide.

To catch quality whiting over 38cm requires at least a couple of feet of water over the area for this spot to work its best. If this tide cycle coincides with dawn or dusk, you can just about be assured of a good catch.

Spinning for flathead can be done over the port's many sandbanks. One of my favourite pastimes is to drift the shallow sandbanks at high tide looking for disturbed fish or flathead lies.

Once found, it is easy to come back a short time later and thoroughly fish that area. Fish of up to 6kg can be targeted this way and a good sign in late spring is when you come across a number of smaller fish in a given area.

You will usually find a bigger fish surrounded by a number of smaller males. While it is nice to catch these big females, it is extremely important to handle these beauties with care because they hold the future of our flathead stocks in their crocodile-like frames.

A technique that works well for me is to anchor up on the edge of a long sand bank on both flooding and ebbing tides.

WORK THE FLATS
The flats in Gunnamatta Bay or around Maianbar are good locations - fish this spot for 15 minutes only with ganged pilchards or livebaits. As soon as 15 minutes are up, move along the bank with the tide just as far as your longest cast and anchor again for another 15 minutes.

Over the next couple of hours you will cover some prime flathead ambush zones and you will be surprised how many fish will come to the boat.

Leatherjackets can be caught around the many rocky shorelines in the bays of Port Hacking. Most of the public wharves hold good numbers but the real action comes when anchored up along the rock ledges and shallow reefs in Burraneer, Yowie and Little Turriell Bays.

A longshank hook is a must because of this species' sharp teeth and small mouths. I find yabbies are a great bait for leatherjackets but if the pickers are about, tougher baits such as cunji are needed.

I find that by often jiggling my rod tip up and down, I increase my strike rate as leatherjackets often hook themselves. These great-eating fish are certainly worth putting in some extra effort to catch.

SCHOOL'S IN
School mulloway from two to 10kg can be caught year round in the deeper stretches of the river. I tend to fish in south-west arm or the main body of water leading into Gymea Bay, Yowie Bay and Lillipilli.

A depth sounder is a useful tool and you'll find it's easy to source bait schools sitting in up to 40ft of water - often shadowed by larger fish.

I tend to fish the edges of reef where it meets the sand.

The rig which suits these areas is very simple. There is very little tidal run so a small ball sinker down onto a 2/0 hook enables you to catch jewfish as well as bream and an assortment of other species as well. While I have tried every type of livebait available, I keep going back to the ever-reliable squid strips for jew.

The jewies just love fresh squid and so my sessions usually commence with an hour or two of bait collecting.

Fresh squid is the only viable option when it comes to deadbaits for these fussy eaters. Dawn and dusk is prime time. The tidal or moon phase doesn't seem to matter as I have caught fish in all stages.

One of the great things about the Port Hacking river is the clean, clear water which pushes in with every tide.

Since kingfish traps have been banned, you can battle with plenty of hard-fighting kingies. Fish up to 10kg make their way right through the system with the better fish falling to live pilchards and squid. Yellowtail and poddy mullet also work on occasion. If you put in the extra work and catch the best baits, expect plenty of line-burning action.

The rocky foreshores around Lillipilli are good spots to look for kingies and many fish have fallen to livebaits fished off the main wharf this year.

I like to use a livebait rig consisting of two to three hooks snelled onto the trace.

I use 60lb mono trace which seems to stand up okay when a kingie tries to nail you around underwater reefs and obstacles. A 15 to 24kg main line is a must for controlling these brutes.

Even though they only average around 6kg - try landing one on tackle less than 10kg! If you want to go this low, be prepared for lots of trips to your local tackle store.

The Port Hacking river is a truly beautiful waterway and anybody wishing to wet a line needs to put in a little more work than normal to catch a feed.

Make sure you have a gameplan which includes collecting fresh bait, fishing dawn and dusk and following the tides up onto the flats as it rises to chase your prey.

If you do this, you have a fair chance of enjoying your Port Hacking experience.

Good Luck!