It certainly seems likely that this Summer will be long and hot. There have been many days when the mercury has been in the high 30s already and this is hot for Harrington.

The inland towns of Taree and Wingham have been a few degrees warmer with plenty of humidity, which makes it so much harder to bear. At least at Harrington a cooling north-easter generally blows in the afternoon and drops the temperature 10° or so.

But the calm mornings are great for fishing live bait for big flathead because the eddies along the wall can easily be picked out and a live bait on a bobby cork rig floated into the eddy.

The evenings are also good to fish after a hot day. There is nothing better than fishing into a cool north-easter after a hot day. The fact that you will possibly score a bag of tailor and an occasional bream will make it all the better.

The flathead have continued to improve, with most anglers able to catch three or four fish and the top guns getting close to a bag limit. Soft plastics, whitebait, yabbies and live baits of yellowtail are working well.

School jewfish continue to provide plenty of action on soft plastics and live bait. Fish to 10kg have been caught but the usual size is 3kg to 4kg.

Luderick and bream are also on the bite. The luderick can be caught during the day on weed while at night live yabbies are the way to go. Bream are taking yabbies, prawns, fish baits and crabs.

After a slow start tailor are showing up in numbers and they should provide most of the action over February and into Autumn. The northern end of Crowdy Beach is forming up the best and the area from Second Creek to Kylies Beach should provide the best fishing.

There are quite a few bream being caught on pipis and beach worms on the southern end of Crowdy Beach near the boiler. They’re not big fish but they are nice and fat.

The southern end of Harrington Beach near the sea wall has produced its share of school jew on beach worms, while the end of the sea wall has seen the best catches of jew to 8kg.

Of course the salmon are still around and will pick up almost any bait. While not a great eating fish they certainly put up a great fight on light line and can be returned to the water to fight again.

The boating anglers have experienced much better weather of late and have been returning to base with a great variety of fish. Snapper, jew, kings, teraglin, morwong and flathead make up the greater part of the catch. There are still plenty of surface fish for those anglers who like to troll a lure around the bait schools.

February should see the arrival of the big tailor to Mermaid Reef and Diamond Head. While they are not as plentiful as they were 30 years ago there is still the occasional fish of 5kg to 7kg to be spun on a lure or a big garfish.