I just love the prospect of warming water and September signifies the start of our rising temperatures, and after a very cool August I am sure the fish are looking forward to a bit of sunshine.

Creek fishing will start to improve as the warmer water dirties up the smaller creeks and the baitfish move in. Smaller creeks like Coona, Theodolite and Moore Park will fire up early so if you have a small boat, canoe or kayak it’s time to dust it off and head up a creek.

Fishing these small creeks is not just about the fishing, it’s also about the adventure and if you haven’t slid a canoe into the back of a hard-to-get-to creek you really should try it.

This is a great early season creek for chasing mangrove jack, bream, cod and flathead. A small tinnie will give you access to most of the creek and can be launched in the back of the housing development at Coona. The ramp is a mud ramp but is good enough for small tinnies and canoes. You may need a 4x4 to retrieve your tinnie at low tide.

You will need some tide to travel to the creeks lower reaches but the upper reaches have some great permanent water. There are rock bars, great snags and lots of mangroves. I have had some great jack sessions in this creek on hardbodied lures, my favourites being the Tilsan Barra and the Killalure Flatz Rat.

Down the mouth around the sand flats the flathead are partial to natural coloured plastics like the Berkley 3” Gulp Minnow in pumpkinseed colour.

Another great early season creek is Theodolite Creek at Woodgate, it also has excellent permanent water in the upper reaches and shallow sand flats at the mouth. You can use the boat ramp at the mouth, though at low tide there is virtually no water. Again a canoe or a small tinnie that you can drag through shallow water is the go.

The upper reaches are home to mangrove jack, bream cod and even a few barramundi at times. The Prawnstar Junior is one of my favourites in this creek, as are small hardbodied lures like Halco Scorpion 90 and Mann’s Stretch 5+.

There are a few smaller offshoots of this creek that are also very good fish holders including House Creek. This creek has some great rock bars the mangrove jack just love to hang around. These smaller creeks fish better towards the bottom of the tide as the fish that are cruising out on the flats move into the more permanent water. This makes these places great for canoes and small tinnies.