Beaches firing with whiting in lead up to Christmas

But don’t fear, beach-loving fishos dreaming of a whiting Christmas seem to be in luck.

Reports of cracking whiting caught along the Port Stephens, Newcastle and Lake Macquarie coastlines flooded in this week in the lead up to Wednesday’s super moon.

Jason “One For” Nunn from Fisherman’s Warehouse, Marks Point, said “there’s just truckloads of whiting around”.

“The beaches have probably been the highlight,” Jason said. “There’s been good reports coming in from Stockton but also from Redhead to Blacksmiths and further south. There’s lots of whiting along the coast.

“I spoke to a couple of anglers earlier in the week and they got whiting up to 50 centimetres off the beach, and that’s nearly school jew type of stuff.

“Another few guys got some in the lake up to about 46 and another said he got a 49, but when you can tip them over to 50 centimetres, that’s incredible.”

Matt, from Duff’s Salamander Bait and Tackle, said Dave Schofield had been among those cashing in on the morning whiting blitz early this week.

“Between one and five ks off Stockton beach, the guys have been doing really well on the whiting,” Matt said.

“They’ve been getting 15 to 17 fish every Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday morning, and one of the sand whiting they brought in here, it was 38 centimetres, so it’s a quality travelling fish.

“They’ve been getting them on the live worms.”

Jason said while the beaches were still the hot spot, whiting would be on the chew in the estuaries over Christmas.

“It’s very typical of this time of year, once you get in to late November, early December, it fires right up, but this year in particular has been a very good whiting year,” he said. “I know the commercial guys have been getting quite a number of big whiting, and lots overall, over at Stockton and at Blacksmiths.

“There’s good numbers of whiting in Swansea channel, but the beach seems to be the shining light with a lot of guys.

“I would assume once we get into this next dark cycle after the full moon Wednesday night, the next seven to 10 nights, we’ll see the next prawn run. Then you will see a lot more whiting back in the estuaries.”

The looming prawn run means plenty of bream, jew and even some snapper have also been close at hand.

Jason said there were “lots of schoolie bream in the lake” building up for the run and “good fish were caught, up around the 40-centimetre bracket and some even around 45-46”.

Matt said “crazy Steve the painter” was among those on the bream up his way, at Bobs Farm.

“He got some bream down off Marsh Road, off the old boat ramp, one was 1.2 kilos,” he said. “That’s around the mangrove and the oyster racks there.”

He added that while a crew brought in three quality snapper, one at 5kg, caught near the Sisters at Broughton Island, others had landed two reds, one at 3.2kg, off Nelson Bay breakwall earlier in the week.

He also said a 22kg jew, caught on pilchards, was reeled in off Fingal beach last Friday.

Jason said while big jew were biting offshore, four to six-kilogram specimens were being caught in Newcastle harbour and Lake Macquarie, mostly on lures. 

Jew, snapper and trag could be the reward for those able to get offshore this weekend.

Jason believed night fishing with live bait was the go for those chasing jew. He said 10 to 15-kilogram jew had been getting caught off Newcastle and south towards Norah Head “on the right night”.

“A lot of younger guys these days are more oriented towards soft plastics looking for flathead and bream and whatnot, and we don’t see as much live-baiting at night, but fishing at night is very, very productive,” he said.

He said recent nor-easters had broken up warmer waters and made it sometimes difficult to find the right spot.

“If you’re going offshore, my tip is to move around a bit,” he said. “Prior to that change, there was trag being caught everywhere. As soon as that water temperature turned that bluey colour, it switched on and we had even had reports of good snapper being caught locally on the inshore reefs. The biggest I heard was four kilos.”

For those after variety, Matt said catching crabs and squid were good options at Port Stephens.

“There’s a lot of crabs around down in the bay,” he said.

“At Tilligerry Creek, a guy caught seven mud crabs in a day, and one was 1.4 kilos, which is not bad as a mud crab goes.

“There’s blue swimmer crabs around Wanda and Sunset beaches and they’ve been getting a heap of squid at night at Little beach near the boat ramp.”