While some months the fishing doesn’t change much from the previous month, June brings some big changes. Many species that were around last month like marlin, cobia, longtail tuna, and – to lesser extent – whiting and flathead, are now virtually non-existent.

The good news is they have just about all been replaced by something else.

Drummer, luderick, tailor, salmon, bream and snapper are all coming into their peak periods.

Inside the bay luderick have been moving in around the Nelson Bay and Anchorage breakwalls. Good catches have also been coming from the Torpedo Tubes and Little Beach jetties.

Fresh cabbage can be sourced from the ocean rocks on a low tide from Fingal and Fishermans Bay. Just make sure there’s not too much swell.

Bream are also in tremendous numbers at the moment and spread throughout the system with any bit of structure between Barnes Rocks and Karuah holding them.

Lure fishing with small hardbodies or soft plastics is extremely productive on bream in June. This is because they will often be schooled up and when you find a patch of them, you’re able to rack up big numbers in a short time.

If land-based and bait fishing, the Rocky Shoreline on the western side of Soldiers Point is a great place to find a few, particularly around high tide.

Mulloway should still be on your target list through winter, especially around the rockwalls and the Corlette wreck. Squid are plentiful through the Shoal Bay Moorings and weed beds along Jimmys Beach with 2.5 sizes jigs working best.

Off the rocks it’s now drummer time and there have been plenty reported from Boulder Bay through to Rocky with large lightly weighted peeled prawns or cunjevoi doing the job.

Casting a metal spinner around the headlands should provide a bit of action with good numbers of tailor as well as a few salmon, bonito and the odd king.

The surf beaches slow down a bit at this time of year. If you work hard around those high tides with live worms you should able to pick up a good bag of bream and whiting.

Tailor and salmon are another good option from the beach this month with dawn and dusk the best times to chase them around Fingal, Samurai, Box Beach and Hawks Nest.

I prefer fishing the afternoons for tailor and walking up the beach casting sinking stickbaits in the 30-45g such as Duel Adagios or Jackson Muscle Shots.

If I’m not getting any strikes from one gutter I’ll wander up to the next and repeat doing that until I find some action.

Any reefs in 10-30m of water from Fingal all the way through to Seal Rocks should fire up this month with snapper from pannies to 20lb monsters.

The key to success will be to fish low light periods with either soft plastics or unweighted baits.

Charter boats are still reporting plenty of trag coming from the Vee, 21, Uralla and Gibber reefs.

Out wide the current has slowed down which will make a trip out to Almark Mountain well worth the effort to target a few kingfish by either jigging or live baiting.

If you do venture out to the mountain be sure to spend a bit of time fishing the bottom for a few tasty critters like longfin perch, gemfish, bar cod, juvenile snapper and mowies.