With the green-brown water in Pittwater and Broken Bay the fishing has been tough lately.

The so-called Summer has come and gone and the fishing for the past month has been difficult, to say the least, but with persistence and a little luck you can still find a decent feed to catch.

We have been targeting kingfish in Pittwater and there are some big fish along the river, but they are hard to tempt. The numbers are down but the size is up and if the usual run of kingfish hit Pittwater over the next month, the fishing should really pick up.

We find that at this time of year if you can catch a few of the smaller cuttlefish that inhabit the rocky areas along the river your chances of catching kingfish increase. The bigger fish are still eating squid but they prefer small cuttlefish.

Areas with deeper water seem to hold the more active fish, including places like the Supermarket, the Motor, Stokes Point and Barrenjoey Head on the ocean side on a run-out tide.

The Basin is also host to the odd school of tailor and there are also some kingfish lurking under these schools.

Again, it is all about covering ground to find fish. When you’ve found them, try to fire up the whole school by getting a double hook-up.

If at first you don’t get any hook-ups and there are fish marking on your sounder, stay in the area and try drifting or change baits.

Sometimes the kingfish are fussy and want nothing to do with a live squid, so cut off its head and try that. You will be surprised at how well it works, and the squid’s gut with the hook piercing the ink sac is another great bait to try as a variation.

Change over to a yellowtail or even a pilchard or a prawn and throw out some pieces of pilchard to try to berley them into action.

Changing over to something different can be all it takes between catching a kingfish and going home with zeros.

Catching squid is easy one day but difficult the next. It depends on the rain and runoff into Pittwater.

The deeper water along the western side of Pittwater is the place to find them unless you are willing to try out the front of Barrenjoey Head.

The brighter jig colours are working well, with orange seeming to be their favourite and 2.5 the preferred size.

The flatties are still firing in Pittwater. The drop-off between Palm Beach and Mackerel Beach is the place to find flathead from 44cm to 80cm.

Our customers have been having a ball drifting along with soft plastics. The double or triple rip is the technique that has worked best and any paddletail-type plastic from 4” to 6” long will work.

Flathead in this area seem to have the knack of just grabbing the lure and swimming back to the boat. As soon as they see the boat they let the lure go and swim off to the bottom.

If this happens to you, free-spool the reel so the lure drops straight back to the bottom and that lost fish on most occasions will try to eat it again.

Other areas to catch a flathead or two include the mouth of Pittwater, from Sand Point towards Stokes Point and The Hill.

The Hill is the drift from Taylors Point to Towlers Bay. In this deeper water always have a squid jig ready for a following squid and also pin a live squid half-way to the bottom for a passing kingfish, or on the bottom for a chance at a jewfish.

Recently we were lucky enough to have a very large school of salmon in Broken Bay and these fish were a blessing during a quiet few weeks. The bite lasted only three days but the salmon, mostly 50cm to 65cm, were ferocious.

There were also bonito in the mix and deeper down there were a few sharks.

After the third day the fish were gone but with reports of more moving up the coast, my fingers are crossed that they will visit again.

Broken Bay and areas such as Middle Grounds, Flint and Steel, Juno Point and Lion Island have been fishing best around the change of the tide and fresh and berley are musts.

Small jewfish, trevally, bream, flathead are all being caught but the bite is brief. Berley will keep them on the chew for longer and hopefully see you take home a feed.