Winter finally arrived around here with a bluster of wind and rain from the south and then settled into calm, cloudy days with light southerly breezes.

It has been quite cold and those anglers fishing the night shift have earned all the fish they got.

Another small fresh has come down the river and stirred up the bream and jew.

The beaches have recovered somewhat and are drivable at low tide but when the tide is high there are a couple of places where the waves wash right up to the wall at the back of the beach.

There are also a couple of spots where the beach has formed two levels and the top level is very narrow and the bottom level has water covering it for most of the tide.

Small chopper tailor have turned up in great numbers. These fish usually appear at Christmas but some years they are early.

It just shows how much trouble the tailor species is in, with these small fish moving up the coast and roeing up to spawn.

When the average tailor caught on the beach was around a kilo these smaller fish were found in the rivers and did not venture out onto the beaches.

The Manning River is fishing well for bream in the lower parts, while good flathead can be caught on soft plastics further up-river.

Night anglers are scoring the best bags of fish with the average bream going 750g. Yabbies, mullet gut, mullet pieces and prawns all taking fish.

Some nice jewfish have been caught on plastics from the sea wall and the beach alongside the wall.

One fish of 30kg and another of 28kg were caught as well as several from 12kg to 22kg. Only a few small fish of 2.5kg to 4kg were landed.

Luderick are back on the bite at night on fresh yabbies from the inside the wall. These are quality fish from 600g to 800g cleaned weight.

With the arrival of the chopper tailor, the rock and beach fishing has picked up considerably.

Salmon, bream, school jew and the occasional whiting have been taken from Crowdy Beach.

The best bream catches have been by those anglers using those black crabs that inhabit the rocks along the river walls.

Salmon are taking most baits but fresh squid gets the best results. Beach worms are the only bait for the school jew at present.

We have had a few calm days and there has been a host of boats taking advantage of the good conditions.

Soft plastic lures have taken some great snapper to 8kg.These fish are not out wide, but in close on the rock bottom.

Flathead have also been good on the drift and those anglers not interested in lure fishing have been able to score a bag limit of fish.

August should be pretty good for estuary and beach fishing. The bream will still be around and the luderick should be plentiful on weed in the day and yabbies at night.

On the beach the chopper tailor should ensure that the big predatory fish stay around for a feed.

Black drummer should be spawning by August but it is hard to predict what they are going to do considering that last year there were still fish roed up at Christmas.