Botany Bay in March should have a great run of bream over most of the cockle beds, drop-offs and places where there is plenty of run in the water.

If you’re fishing in shallow water (1m to 3m) you will need to use berley, with chicken pellets, chopped pilchards and prawn shells. A 1m to 2m long leader, the longer the better, is essential and there needs to be plenty of run in the water. Best baits would be peeled prawns, pink nippers, pilchard fillets, chicken fillet and strips of fresh squid.

In areas where the water is over 3m you will also need to berley but you should fish as lightly as the conditions will allow. That might mean having a 00 ball sinker right down on top of the bait so that you can slowly let it out with the berley. You could also work these areas with soft plastics.

If you fancy getting a couple of flathead you should try fishing the shallows off Towra Point, Yarra Bay, the shore from Dolls Point to the entrance of Cooks River and Silver Beach. Whitebait, half-pilchards, chicken fillets, mullet and live yellowtail are all good baits.

Molineaux Point, the end of the third runway, the Tugs, Bare Island, Watts Reef, the Hot Water Outlet and the Oil Wharf are all be places to try for kingfish. Many anglers, even those who have fished Botany Bay for years, incorrectly think that Molineaux Point is the only place where you can get kingfish. That is why it gets so crowded.

You could also try Sutherland Point, Henry Head, Kurnell Point, the Drums in the middle of the bay, any of the marker buoys and channel markers.

Most of the above places should also hold good quantities of silver trevally, leatherjackets, the odd mulloway and flathead.

The Georges and Woronora rivers will also be worth a shot for bream, flathead and whiting. Other places to try would be Bald Face Point, Como Bridge, Lugarno, Soily Point, Picnic Point and the Alfords Point Bridge. You could also try fishing the George State National Park and Cattle Duffers.

Port Hacking will have plenty of squid, leatherjackets, bream, dusky flathead and schools of tailor and kingfish. The best times to work are early in the morning, just before the sun is going down or on overcast days. The luderick should also be starting to school up around the entrance to Port Hacking.

The sand flats are worth a try for bream, dusky flathead and whiting.

On another point, everyone needs to remember to be careful when casting from the shore. One guy hit a young girl on the arm when he was casting snapper sinkers on a paternoster rig from Molineaux Point recently. This could have easily caused her a serious injury.

For further information about fishing in Botany Bay purchase a copy of A Day on the Bay by Scott Lyons and me. The DVD covers how to catch live-bait for yellowtail kingfish, techniques for targeting dusky flathead with soft plastics, bait fishing for yellowfin bream and silver trevally and lure fishing for tailor. It also includes places where to fish on Botany Bay and even how to clean your catch.  

If you are interested in getting a DVD or joining one of my Fishing Classes, contact me via email or on 0422 994 207.

I realise that as a writer in any magazine you have to be careful as to what you say and put down in writing. This is one of the reasons why magazines have editors, who can at times bring us writers into line. But enough if enough!

There is a segment (Jonsey and Amanda) on a Sydney radio station (101.7 WSFM) called „What gets my goolies‰. It is where you can ring, write or email in something that gets on your goat. Now in the vast area of the Sydney waterways there are a few places that are out of bounds to not only anglers, but anyone of the public who owns a boat. Places like naval areas, shipping channels, certain docks, etc, and I along with many other anglers don‚t have a problem with that.

But, what I do have a problem with is getting told time and time again that I can‚t go fishing in certain places because they are out of bounds, when I know they are not. On Saturday the 14th of January 2006 I was pre-fishing the ABT Summer Bream Competition in Sydney Harbour with my team member. We had tried a number of places and were coming out from under the Iron Cove Bridge when I decided to try the outside of the Birkenhead Marina. My second cast came up tight and I was totally smashed up by a big bream.

It wasn‚t long after that when I heard someone from the shoreline (50 metres away) yelling at the two of us. This guy was telling me that we could not fish inside the marina, when clearly we were on the outside of the marina. He also told me that all marinas in NSW were fish sanctuaries and we would be in big trouble if we stayed there and fish. When I calmly informed him that he was not correct in what he was saying and that I was quite within my rights to fish where I was and that there are no marina fish sanctuaries in NSW, he got really shitty and yelled at us some more and then stormed off.

I don‚t know whether this guy was the manager of the marina, a boat owner at the marina, a shop owner at Birkenhead Point or just a passer by.

On the Competition day Sunday the 15th of January 2006, it happened again, but not at the same place. It was nearly time to go and weight our 4 fish in (12.30pm) when we were again told that we were not allowed to fish where we were fishing. I calmly asked this guy who told me that we could not fish where we were. His answer was, „It is written on the Ferry wharf‰. That was the last straw and I told him that he had no idea of what he was talking about and if he thought that a sign on a ferry wharf saying „no fishing allowed‰ was related to where we were fishing, he was an idiot. He then informed us that he was going to get the water police and have us arrested. When I told him that we would wait for them to come he drove off.

I fished the ABT Summer BREAM Competition in Sydney Harbour recently We were working soft plastics and hard body lures along the wall opposite the Wharf Road boat ramp in the Parramatta River.