That’s one ‘Summer’ season I’m glad is behind us. Botany Bay never fished well at all.

Sure the bream kept us busy along with the odd little bit of surface action with salmon, bonito and tailor and there were a few good flathead about, but after all the rain and more rain, the kingfish that all anglers look forward to just never really turned up.

We did find a few for the odd lucky angler but the big numbers that can call the Bay home over the warmer months never came in due to all the dirty water flowing out.

I think most rivers along the NSW coast would have been much the same. We may find a late run, let’s wait and see.

Who’s looking forward the cooler months? I am, that’s for sure. I’m totally over the rain and the wind.

Winter fishing off Sydney last year was great with snapper, morwong and great flathead and trolling along the coast produced well.

Snapper and morwong call the deeper reefs home in the Winter and most Wednesdays I’m targeting these fish off Coogee, Port Hacking or wide of Stanwell Tops.

Anchoring, rather than drifting, works for me but the trick is finding the fish on your sounder. This may take a while but once fish are spotted close to the bottom, I work out the direction of the current and motor into it before dropping anchor and fishing back to the area where I spotted fish.

Most spots that I fish are 50m-70m deep so you need about 100m of anchor rope with 5m of chain and a rock pick.

I use 6000D BaitRunners with 15kg braid tied to 10kg fluorocarbon and simple dropper rigs above an 8oz snapper lead.

Bait is usually pilchard, squid, tuna strip or other good fish bait, prawns and so on. A squid strip on the top hook and a pilchard on the bottom hook works well for me.

Wide of the Bay, flathead can be found in 45m-50m and drifting will give best results. Winter seems to produce better fish most trips using the rig above.