The Port Hacking is located on the southern outskirts of Sydney and in nestled within the Sutherland Shire. On the northern side of the Port you will find urban dwellings right down to the waters edge in most places, while on the southern side you will find that the bushland of the Royal National Park is right down to the waters edge in most parts of the park, except where the townships of Bundeena and Maianbar.

Shark Island is situated just south of the point at Cronulla. Ii is here that you can jig up squid and then use them to catch yellowtail kingfish.

This small, but very picturesque, sandy estuary is home to elbow slapping whiting, thumper yellowfin bream, flathead that are sometimes referred to as small crocodiles, tackle destroying yellowtail kingfish, luderick, Australian Bass, blue swimmer crabs, garfish, mullet, snapper and a series of sand bars that have pink nippers that will draw blood if they latch onto an unsuspecting finger or two.

Sounds to good to be true, well believe me, it’s not. The next time that you are thinking of were will you go for a fish that is somewhere different, pack up your gear and head down south to the Port Hacking and experience the great fishing that is on hand.

Even though the Port Hacking is a fairly small waterway compared to the others that are found in the Sydney basin, I will need to break it into sections for you.

They will be sand bars and weed beds, artificial reefs and rocky points, pontoons and marinas and deep bays.

Sand bars and weed beds.

If you have never fished in the Port Hacking before I would suggest that you go there when the tide is low, as this will give you a better idea what the boat ramps are like and where all the sand bars are located. These sand bars and weed beds can be found up in the end of North-west and South West Arms, Gymea, Yowie, Burraneer, and Gunnamatta Bays, Lilly Pilly, Maianbar and Bundeena.

I have found that if I am going to fish the tops of the sand flats that I need to concentrate my fishing time to about two hours either side of the top of the tide, but if I am going to fish the edge of these sand flats and into the deeper holes that are found there I will need to concentrate my fishing time near the bottom of the tide. Say the last two hours of the runout tide.

One thing that I have found when bait fishing while I am anchored in the Port Hacking it is essential to have a small, but steady stream of berley trickling out the back of your boat. It can be anything from those old left over pilchards, stale bread, chicken pellets or prawn heads and shells. If you are chasing luderick the best berley you can use is a mixture of finely chopped up green weed or cabbage and sand.

If you are chasing snapper in the Port Hacking you should try using a number 2 ball sinker right down onto a 2/0 Mustad Big Red hook and use half a pilchard for bait.

Now as for the rig to used to target yellowfin bream, whiting and flathead when anchor on the sand bars, I prefer to have a leader of between one to two metres in length. This is so that the sinker will anchor onto the bottom and allow the bait to drift around with the movement of the tide.

When I am fishing into the deeper water I will use a couple of different rigs. One is the long leader with the sinker down onto a swivel, and the other is with the sinker right down onto the hook. The sinker weight is determined by the flow of the current.

Most of these places that I have listed are boat based spots, but if you get you street directory out you will find that that there are land based spots like Deer Park, the end of Swallow Rock Drive, Dee Ban Spit and near the pool in Gunnamatta Bay.

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Artificial reefs and rocky points.

After you have pumped your pink nippers at Maianbar and you start to travel up stream you will come across a place called the Ballast Heap. It is here you can either anchor up or drift with the aid of an electric motor or a set of oars for whiting, flathead, bream, mullet, garfish and the odd mulloway.

The water tends to be extremely clear here, so fishing during those low light periods will usually produce the better catches. The Ballast Heap is also worth a try just after the tide has turned, especially after we have had a lot of rain. Try using smelly or oily baits like chicken and mullet gut, stripped tuna, bonito; chicken soaked in Parmesan cheese and slimy mackerel fillets.

Further up stream you will find artificial reefs just off the sand flats near Deer Park, Carruthers Bay and the north side of the point at Lilly Pilly. All of these reefs are worth fishing on the rising tide.

Try flicking soft plastics in and around the moored boats in Gymea, Yowie and Gunnamatta Bays for kingies.

Now if you would like to fish a couple of the natural occurring reefs in the Port you could always try Mansion and Lightning Points. Both of these reefs are found in about 6 to 7 metres of water and are no more than 15 metres from the shore.

This also means that while you are fishing the deep water over the reef you can cast an unweighted bait back towards the shore for those bream and snapper that are poking around.

As I stated earlier in this article, you will need to explore the Port Hacking during the lower parts of the tide, especially when you are looking for the oyster covered rocks. It is at these places you will need to come back to at about an hour before and after the top of the tide to fish.

You can either use unweighted baits like peeled prawns, nippers and strips of tuna, bonito or mullet. If bait is not to your liking you could always cast out a small minnow lure or plastics.

For those of you that are land-based anglers you could always try fishing from the shore on the side of the Royal National Park. One rocky point that comes to mind is the picnic area at Warumbul. This is an excellent shore-based area that is accessible by turning off Sir Bertram Stevens Drive that runs through the Royal National Park. Travelling south you will see a dirt road called Warumbul. Follow this road straight down to the waters edge.

It’s a place that you can take the family for a picnic, while at the same time cast a line out for yellowfin bream, whiting, garfish, leatherjackets and luderick. To have success at Warumbul you will need to either cast out from the shore to avoid the rocky and snaggy shoreline, or you can use a float to suspend the bait about the bottom.

During the summer months surface fish like tailor and Australian salmon do frequent this stretch of water, so have the metal lures ready to go in your tackle box.

Pontoons and marinas.

Before you start to fish any of the pontoons and marinas you have got to remember that they are somebodies private property and you will need to respect it as such. If you happened to get caught up on a rope, boat or pontoon, just make sure that you get the hooks off. Nothing is worst that finding a hook that has been left in a rope when you are pulling it in?

During the summer months the Port Hacking is renown for it’s large population of dusky flathead.

If you are going to cast lures or soft plastics in and around the pontoons and marinas and you want to be successful, you will need to have a electric motor. Just imagine that you are casting towards a pontoon and a bream comes out an has a look at your lure or plastic while at the same time the tide is taking you away from it.

This is when the electric motor will give you the ability to stay in the one position so that the bream can take the lure or plastic. Once hooked up you can then use the electric motor to help you get the bream out from around the pontoon.

I have a few favourite pontoons that I regularly pull fish from underneath, but I am not using lures or plastics. What I do is that I will anchor up current of the pontoon, start up a berley trail of chicken pellets and then feed lightly weighted baits down towards the bottom.

Once the bait has reached the bottom and a fish has not taken it I will slowly wind it back in and start the process all over again. This is where a baitrunner reel is great.

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Deep bays.

I have found that when I am trolling for flathead in the Port Hacking I will often catch a numb ray. If you get one make sure that you don’t touch them, as they give off a nasty shock.

Once again I find it extremely important that you use berley when fishing the deep bays in the Port Hacking as it increases your chance of catching a few fish ten fold. Many a time I have been out on the water and watched other anglers who have been bait fishing while anchored up.

After asking them how they are going, the usual reply is, “ all we are catching is small snapper “. “ Are you berleying? “ I will ask them. “ Waste of time “ is the reply. These anglers will still struggle to get amongst a few descent fish as long as their bums point to the ground.

Due to the fact that the Port Hacking is such a clean waterway, the fish will be able to see you a lot longer before you see them. So what you need to do is get their minds off you and onto the baits that you should have floating down in your berley trail.

There are about thirty to forty deep bays located in the Port Hacking, and all of them are as good as each other. It is just a matter of working out which one is working better than the other ones.

Places like the entrance to Gymea and Yowie bays will hold whiting, bream, snapper, flathead and mulloway. You can either drift or anchor up, but you don’t need to be more than twenty metres from the shore. Any further out all you will usually catch is those small snapper.

As you can see from this photo, flounder are also partial to gulping down a plastic or two.

Gooseberry Bay is another place that can be accessed from the shore, but it is a fairly long walk along a dirt road. You will need to follow the road to Maianbar and then turn off onto Costen’s Point Road. Here you will need to park and then walk down to the shore. It takes about 30 to 40 minutes.

Most of the fishing in this bay is done from a boat and the best time to fish here is during the week or at night. This is due to the fact that it is a very popular spot for the much larger craft to tie up and that you can get a lot of water skiers here.

I have found that either a day or couple of days after a long weekend or the week end will fish the best here as the fleet of boats that sometimes moor here will do all the berleying for you.

Bream, flathead, whiting, leatherjackets and some pan sized snapper can be caught here during the quieter times of the day.

Well, there you have it, some of the places and techniques that I use to fish the Port Hacking. Many anglers that I have spoken to over the years have stated that the Port Hacking is a very hard place to come away from with a few fish. I have had not trouble in getting a feed every time I go out and fish the Port, all you need to do is get out there are give it ago.

Boat Ramps.

No	Location	Boat Size	Parking	Build.
1	Tokin Park in Gunnamatta Bay	5m	Fair	1 laned concrete
2	Water St in Burraneer Bay	7m	Fair	1 laned concrete
3	Port Hacking Rd in Dolan’s Bay	8m	Fair	2 laned concrete
4	Wonga Rd in Yowie Bay	7m	Good	1 laned concrete
5	Swallow Rock Dr at Grays Point	8m	Very good	2 laned concrete