July may be cold, but the fishing action can be red hot. So rug up and get out there.

Two of the main species to target during July are tailor and bream. They can be found almost anywhere; off the beach or rocks and in the bays and estuaries.

Beaches worth a go are Coalcliff, Stanwell Park, Garie, North Wanda, Greenhills, Maroubra and Bondi. If you like rock fishing, try South Bondi, North Maroubra, Little Bay, La Perouse, Bare Island, the Kurnell Peninsular, North and South Garie, Wattamolla, Burning Palms and Coalcliff Point.

Botany and Bate bays will hold schools of tailor at various times of the tide during July, just be prepared to move about a fair bit if the tailor are feeding on the surface. If there aren’t any diving birds, try trolling a few deep diving minnows around while watching your sounder for schools of baitfish. Once you have located them you can work the area over.

Good places to start are Bare Island bommie, Henry Head, Kurnell Point, Watts Reef, the Oil Wharf, the end of the third runway and the sticks. In Bate Bay you could try Merries Reef, Osborne Shoals, Shark Island and Jibbon bommie. Bream can also be caught fishing these areas as well.

The Port Hacking has many small bays and inlets that are worth slow trolling around for tailor. Place your lures about 10-15m out the back so you can work the shorelines while at the same time work in and around the moored boats. Try Gunnamatta, Burraneer, Gymea and Yowie bays.

The key to catching bream in Port Hacking is to anchor up and have a small, but steady, berley trail going. Fish as light as the conditions will allow and have the freshest of bait or live bait, like pink nippers, small poddy mullet, and tube, blood and beach worms.

When chasing tailor with bait, use either whole WA pilchard and large whitebait set on ganged hooks. The size of the hook should suit the size of the bait.

For bream, I will use various bait and fish in fast flowing water using two rigs. Firstly, I use a ball sinker, swivel, 1-2m of leader and a number 1 to 1/0 hook (refer to rig No.1). For my other rig I use a running ball sinker that goes directly down onto the top of the bait (refer to rig No.2).

If I am fishing by myself I will have four outfits; two of each rig. All four will have a bait feeder style threadline reel.

The best thing is that you don’t have to get up early in the morning to do this type of fishing. Just coincide your fishing time to a week either side of the new moon and fish about two hours either side of the top or bottom of the tide.

Dia_1

Rig No. 1

Dia_2

Rig No. 2