If you’ve been sleeping in and catching up on your beauty sleep, keep at it and those of us who brave the conditions will continue to reap the rewards.

Fishing in July can be excellent and if you have favourable conditions, you can fish all day.

Although a decent drop of rain wouldn’t go astray, fishing has been good. This month the river fishes its best in the lower reaches and bait-soakers have their best chances of success in the dark.

Bream will be the top species at night with the mouth of Limeburners Creek a great place to start, or anywhere along the coal walls. Flathead should be moving up into the shallows and baits and lures will get action. Some nice eating-size models around 40cm have been showing up.

School mulloway should be snooping around the river looking for an easy feed and with good numbers of mullet around, a nice poddy or a similar-sized lure would be a good starting point. The Camden Haven River has been fishing exceptionally well lately and should continue this month, with the walls the pick spots.

Bream spinners will do well to test a variety of tactics. Those following the ABT BREAM circuit will be well aware how well crankbaits are doing and with Port Macquarie renowned for its lure makers, what better product to use than ones made and tested here?

Wayne Bale and I have done some intensive fishing using hard lures and shallow divers have worked a treat in a variety of situations. You might dust off a few old lures when you realise they can still catch fish.

The beaches have been coughing up good catches of bream and tailor and good mulloway should also show up this month. A group of mates and I used to have a weekend away in July chasing drummer, tailor and mulloway up at Big Hill. Those days aren’t as common as we all have families now but if I could fit it in I’d be heading to Big Hill this month.

But the schedule is pretty busy so I’ll have to stay closer to home and work over Grants Head and Lighthouse. A nice berley trail of bread with cunjevoi as bait should produce some drummer and bream and maybe some nice tailor will also show up.

Offshore action has been hit and miss with conditions ideal one day then very testing the next. However, the westerlies should be kind to those venturing close inshore and create some welcome conditions.

Leatherjackets have been in good numbers and causing the usual damage. Lure fishing for snapper is really taking off and deep jigging is working a treat but Phil and Chris from Port Tackle had a rare bait session recently and were rewarded with snapper, kingfish and pearl perch. Catches like this should continue this month.

Don’t forget the Sundowner BREAM Classic on November 18 and 19. It’s looking like being a huge event.

If you’d like to share some of your catches with me and other readers, email me.