It has indeed been a very interesting month. The Manning did not experience a big flow of fresh water from the first rain event but certainly made up for it with the second.

This water could take a month to clear but means we should have experienced a good clean-out of the river.

This will make the mullet run this year a beauty, as reports from up river indicate that there were big schools of fish gathering in the fresh water.

The flathead run is starting to decline with fewer fish being caught. Chinamens Point was producing the best catches on soft plastics and bait.

The dirty water up river around Taree pushed the bream down to the lower parts of the estuary. The spur wall at Manning Point and around the oyster leases up to Cattai Creek produced plenty of big bream on plastics and bait.

Jewfish have been scarce for a couple of weeks but should be back on the bite by the time the full moon arrives.

The best fishing lately was with surface poppers, beach worms or yabbies for whiting on the sand flats at the mouth of the Manning.

Fishing has slowed down a bit on the beaches. Tailor have become scarce and salmon not as numerous.

Bream and whiting make up most of the bags with beach worms, pipis and yabbies doing the damage.

There have been very few birds on our beaches because there are no schools of baitfish in the gutters. No baitfish, no birds, no fish to eat the baitfish.

When the baitfish come back to the beaches then the fish that eat them will be back.

The outside story is much the same, with some good catches of snapper and trag and very little else.

The only really good news outside is the appearance of big schools of bonito. These fish can be easily caught trolling surface lures and make great bait, fresh or cured.

The mullet should run at the end of this month and that makes fishing in the mouth of the river or around the headlands an exciting experience.

Big mulloway harass the mullet and around the headlands, big tailor can be caught while floating out a bait for a jew.

The bream follow the mullet and the luderick go with the bream. This all makes for exciting fishing.