Beach Fishing

Another form of fishing I enjoy is beach fishing. There’s nothing more relaxing than standing on the beach, enjoying the weather and environment waiting for a catch. A good advantage of fishing on the beach is that you can catch beach worms and pipies on the beach to use as bait.

A couple of beach worms caught by my brother, we used a fish pump to keep them live for the next day.

There are plenty of fish available from the beach: bream, snapper, tailor, flathead and as a bonus to the land-based fishos, the bigger species including jewfish, salmon and kingfish.

Beach Fishing Gear

Fishing on the beach as opposed to estuary is a whole new ball game, and it all starts with the gear you use.

Rod: Has to be at least 10ft. Preferably a thin whippy one as well so that you can cast it a fair distance. I would recommend the Australian made Snyder Glas rods. My brother owns one and I have used it before. It casts well and handles the big fish with ease. It will set you back about $200 though. The surf rods typically have longer butt so that it can be put in to a rod holder.
Reel: Not much preference on this, my brother uses the Penn 9500 ss (another $200 or so), but I would say get something that matches the rod with a precise drag. Make sure you have enough line if you are targeting something big, because if a shark takes it you might need a few hundred metres of line.
Line: Again not much preference, but choose something that will match the rod and reel. If you are going the 12ft setup you may need 30lb line as a minimum. If you choose to use monofilament, save yourself the trouble and buy a more expensive brand which has less “memory” (ie. less likely to tangle) as your line will curl up soon enough in the wash.

My current set up:

A 10ft telescopic rod (from Japan, not sure if you can get these here), 6lb Fireline and Daiwa reel. As the rod would generally be a long, heavy one, a rod holder is essential. You can purchase these at bait & tackle stores or even a Big W or K Mart. Or you could get a PVC pipe and cut one yourself as I have done.

Hotspots

Coogee Beach

Excellent place to fish at night with plenty of lights about. Plenty of species about, including the ones in which we have caught: Australian Salmon, Tailor, Golden Trevally and even the odd shark. Be aware that it gets a bit busy in the summer with the parking around and there may be some drunks wondering the beach. Fish directly down from the car park and use pilchards on gang hooks. Frozen bait works well, but obviously the fresher the better.

Wanda Beach

Popular fishing spot with many fishos and can be fished there during the day. Fish north of the main beach where there are not many surfers. I have not fished there much but I have seen people catch Australian Salmon on a ganged pilchard.

Brighton Beach

Quiet place with not many waves. Never see anyone fish at this beach, but we tried one time and caught quite a few nice sized snapper on prawns. Good part being that it is fairly free of people due to not many waves about.

The Entrance

Ok so it is not “fishing in Sydney” as such, but I thought I’d give it a mention as my mate had a bit of success when we went there last time. He caught a small jewfish, about 2kg on a whole yellowtail we caught the previous day. We also saw some guy who had a massive overhead reel and had it strapped to his body, so I think there should be a fair bit out there.