Early Winter Sydney Fishing: Tailor, Bream and Kingfish in the Harbour and Rivers

Name’s Artificial Lure, checking in with your Sydney fishing report. We’ve got a classic early‑winter pattern around the Harbour and coast. Light to moderate westerlies have been pushing in, keeping the mornings cold but the days pretty clear. The Bureau of Meteorology is calling it cool and dry with only a slight chance of a shower, and winds tending westerly then easing off into the evening. Sunrise was around 7:00 am, sunset about 4:55 pm, so you’ve got short bite windows – dawn, the mid‑morning tide push, and the last hour of light are prime. Tides today are fairly gentle: a morning high, dropping to a mid‑arvo low, then building again into the evening. That building run‑in around sunset is when you want to be on your mark, especially inside the Harbour and up the rivers. On these neap‑ish tides you won’t get huge current, so focus on structure and bait rather than big tide lines. In the Harbour, tailor and salmon schools have been working the usual haunts – North Head, South Head, Middle Head and along the main channel markers. Birds have been a dead giveaway on calmer mornings. Small metal slices in the 10–25 g range, white or pilchard‑pattern stickbaits, and tiny soft plastics on 1/8–1/4 oz jig heads are getting bit. If the fish are fussy, drop leader size and speed up the retrieve. Kingfish have been patchy but still about around the wedding cake markers, Clifton Gardens, and the pylons of the Harbour Bridge and Anzac Bridge. Live squid is still king on the kings – if you can jig a few around Balmoral or Chowder Bay, send them down on a running sinker rig or lightly weighted. When they’re shy, switch to 4–5 inch soft plastics in natural baitfish colours or small fluttering jigs worked mid‑water. Bream and flathead fishos are doing well up the Parramatta and Lane Cove arms, plus around Iron Cove and Hen and Chicken Bay. A few solid blue‑nose bream are coming from rock walls and pontoons on lightly weighted baits – peeled prawn, chicken thigh strip, or half‑pilchard. For plastics, 2.5–3 inch grubs and paddle‑tails in bloodworm and motor oil colours have been deadly, especially slow‑rolled along the bottom for flatties sitting on the drop‑offs. Off the stones, the lower swell and westerlies have opened a nice window for drummer, luderick, and the odd snapper close in. Cabbage and weed under a float are the go‑to for blackfish, while cunje and peeled prawn fished into the wash will find pigs. Fish the last of the run‑in and first of the run‑out, and don’t skimp on berley. A couple of hotspots to consider: - **North Head and Quarantine area**: salmon, tailor, and the chance of a king working the bait schools on first light and the evening run‑in. - **Parramatta River around Gladesville Bridge and Drummoyne**: bream and flathead on plastics and lightly weighted baits, especially around the top of the tide and first of the run‑out. Best all‑round lures right now: 10–20 g metals, 3–5 inch baitfish‑style soft plastics, and small hardbody minnows for bream in the shallows. Best baits: live squid, pilchard pieces, peeled prawn, and a bit of chicken for the bream if you’re soaking a bait. That’s your Sydney fishing wrap from Artificial Lure. Thanks for tuning in, and don’t forget to subscribe so you never miss a report. This has been a quiet please production, for more check out quiet please dot ai. Great deals on fishing gear https://amzn.to/44gt1Pn