Our typical Sydney summer weather has finally arrived and has definitely encouraged the fish to go on the chew. The warmth has allowed more anglers the opportunity to head out and chase their favourite species without leaving their comfort zone.

More kingfish and mulloway this month with some good captures being reported in and around the northern beaches. The next few months will be prime time to land both of these species from the shoreline and the boat, on baits and lures alike.

Josh Laws and David Rothwell headed out to the 60m mark off Narrabeen recently looking for a king or two, and it wasn’t too long before Josh had himself hooked up to a solid fighting fish. He used a live slimey for bait, and was rewarded with a 98cm fish up and over the gun whale. After a quick fight, and a couple of pics, it was straight on the ice. When you’re looking to get a feed of fish, a little preparation goes a long way to preserving the flavour of the fish Spending $10 on ice for your esky is paramount.

Hardly a day goes by in the shop where we aren’t hearing of kings being caught somewhere locally. One of our regular fishos has been on the money again – Anthony Ball went for a trip out off a couple of local reefs in the Dee Why area and wasn’t disappointed. ‘Bally’ hooked a 114cm king on a live squid using 60lb braid and a Saragosa 6000, after a valiant fight, the fish unfortunately couldn’t be revived. The king had been tagged recently by the guys over at Oceanhunter Sportsfishing and weighed in at 14.2kgs – a solid fish on medium size gear.

It didn’t take long for this year’s winner of ‘The Hunt For Red October’ snapper comp to get back into the fish. Hardly a week had gone by before Tim Angus headed off down the Hawkesbury River chasing mulloway on plastics and got into them during a mid arvo session. Tim was fishing with 125mm squidgy whipbait in the white lightning colour when he hooked up a 104cm fish that was released after a few photos. Tim mentioned he caught a couple of smaller mulloway on this trip. For the moon and tide guys – the moon was in the first quarter with the tide on the run out.

Lately the fishing has been crazy, Brennan Webster just rang me with a report of a 118cm kingfish he caught on a live yakka using 80lb gear in 24m off Manly – another great sized fish caught just out the front.

Having a boat is a terrific advantage to get you closer to fish but it’s not always necessary. Land based fishos are well and truly getting among them and this report focuses more on getting in the zone rather than anything else. Place yourself in the right spot at the right time, every spot has its day and you need to do as much as possible to give yourself the best chance. Jesse Riley and a few of the boys from KFNSW (one of the kayak Facebook sites) left the yaks at home and hit the beach when the wind got up recently. Using pilchards, they caught a great number of salmon and flathead just behind the wash casting into the breeze.

Sydney Harbour has been holding some good schools of pelagics lately with salmon and tailor prolific in and around from the heads to the Harbour Bridge. You’ll find bonito and kings mixed up with these species. A good way to find the fish is to find the feeding birds. Lures from small metals to hardbodies and soft plastics will be suitable for casting into these schools. At times it can be hard to hook these guys up, so try and get in front of them and shut the motor off as there’s every possibility they will swim into you. Shutting the motor off can be imperative as many boats chasing these fish can make them motor shy. At all costs, avoid driving into the middle of any school you locate as this will make them dive and who knows where they will come up next.

Finally on behalf of myself, and all the boys here at Fishouttawater Tackleworld do have a very Merry Christmas and I’ll catch you all in the New Year.