The recent rains should have a positive effect for all facets of fishing in the next few months.

The estuaries, rocks and beaches should all be a winner as well as the inshore reefs as most of the small creeks burst their banks, a long overdue flush indeed. River mulloway, inshore snapper, beach bream and bread-and-butter rock fishing should all be worthy pursuits.

On the topic of river jewies, Phil Petridis has bitten the bullet and set himself up with a purpose-built soft plastic jewie stick after too many rumours kept filtering down from the Shoalhaven River. Armed with Starlo’s preferred Squidgy fish, Phil’s maiden voyage to a spot where he as scored soapies while breaming in the past provided one absolute howler of a run before the hook pulled and the loss of another fish which, unfortunately, surrendered its eyeball to the jig head. If you catch a big one-eyed mulloway this Winter, you’ll now know who to blame.

Rain, rain, rain was the best way to describe the conditions for the Clyde River Quintrex BREAM event. Three days of genuine, drought-easing rain teemed almost non-stop, providing some tough conditions for the record 49-boat turn out.

I fished as a non-boater and managed to find a lone 420g fish. I’m pretty happy with the result, though, as plenty of big names recorded a similar result. Stand out anglers for the weekend were Trent Butler in first place with eight fish, Tim Morgan yet again second with seven fish and Chris Wright clinched the big bream by 20g with a lovely 880g fish.

Speaking to other anglers on how they fared revealed a healthy dose of demoralising bust-ups and I had a few myself. The Clyde is home to plenty of XOS bream and if the monster Steve Starling lost in the dying minutes of comp is anything to go by, then I know the calibre of fish that have been shredding us over the last few months. According to Starlo it was the biggest bream he has ever seen in the Clyde, 1.7kg to 1.8kg – scary stuff considering he was in the oyster racks!

Although it was wet and windy I still enjoyed the weekend. These comps are without doubt the way of the future. No fish die in the name of a contest and spectators still get to witness the results, with the bream held in a display tank before being returned to the river. Thanks to my boaters, Scott Towner and Mathew Clarke-Bruce – good company in trying conditions.

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Shannon Bowerman has been scoring prime kingfish lately from the reefs close to Moruya.

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Shannon Bowerman with a beautiful red – expect more of these, thanks to the recent raiin.