Wow, where do I start? The rivers and beaches are going off at the moment, and after witnessing some of the catches from outside, I reckon it’s pretty good out there too.

I’ve been rampaging all over the river in the ’yak, chasing bream on lures with a lot of success. Two spots in particular have produced some nice fish, in fact, a personal-best 36cm to the fork. One is a bit of a gimme, because they feed the fish off the back of the tourist crab boat near Seagulls, so it’s cheating a little, maybe? But how I do it is to cast a lightly weighted plastic in between the engines and hang on as these fish are very aggressive and a lot of fun to catch. I might add that they are pretty clever too, because they cotton on to various lures and then ignore them.

My other ‘secret’ spot is the wall along Drydock Road. Here I’ve been using both shallow and deep diving hardbodies cast as close as possible, then gently rolled back to the ’yak, pausing a few times as well. Interestingly, that seems to be when the fish hit.

The bridge and the kind of dead end canal where the old yacht club is, is fishing well too. I was there with young mate Zac the other day and told him to cast his plastic so it would hit the bridge then plop into the water. He did just that and got smashed by a little jack — his first one.

I’ve got a lot of mates who are into beach fishing and they have been getting quality chopper tailor all along Fingal Beach, with some greenbacks caught down at Kingscliff in front of the surf club. Good fishing spot that; when your arms get too sore from pulling fish in, you can walk 10m and grab a cold one — lemonade of course!

The bigger flathead seem to have moved out towards the sea entrance. I see them in the strangest places, almost like they are sunbaking, but you have to look really hard as their camouflage is amazing.

Whiting are around in numbers and I noticed all the bait shops have sold out of live worms, but don’t worry they restock quickly. Where to find them though — try in the shallows, around the rowing club, Kennedy Drive boat ramp, and the long stretch behind the golf club.

If land based and you want to spin, try walking and casting the Anchorage Estate. It’s perfect; there’s flathead, bream, whiting, jacks, and, I’m not kidding you, the odd barracuda.