Brooklyn and Dangar Island boat fishing

By Andrew Hestelow

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Brooklyn puts several quite different sorts of Hawkesbury fishing within a short boat run. There are shallow banks to drift for flathead and whiting, rocky shores for bream and luderick, and deeper holes where slowing water gives you a better chance of presenting a mulloway bait properly.

A falling-tide drift over the Dangar shoals is a different job from fishing Cogra Bay's banks at high water. The hard-running holes off Wobby and at Bream Hole call for patience around slack water, while the rocky shoreline offers a more active bream session.

Pick the water and the tide

Prepare for the change of water

Prepare for the particular water, with leaders and several weights ready before launching. These setups combine the official Hawkesbury guide with the shop's light-tackle and float methods.

Bream and sand-bank baits

A responsive 2–5 kg rod around 6–7 ft, a 2500–3000 reel and 3 kg braid or mono make a light starting outfit. Slide a small ball sinker above a rolling swivel; below it tie 30–50 cm of 3–6 kg leader and a size 2 non-offset circle for a prawn or nipper. Size 1–1/0 suits larger bream baits. On gentle shallow banks, start unweighted or with a 00 ball; add weight to reach bottom without ploughing the mud. Use the stronger leader beside rock. Wind into the fish when a circle loads. The Light Spinning Combo offers a compact 6 ft boat rod with 6 or 12 lb braid; the lighter option suits this gentle-water work.

Flathead plastics

Use a 2–5 kg rod, 2500–3000 reel and 6–12 lb braid joined to about a rod length of 10–15 lb leader. Tie on a jighead with a sound hook matched to a straight 3–4 inch plastic; a suitable 2/0 is a starting choice. Carry 3.5 and 7 g heads for sheltered banks, 10.5 g for extra depth or drift, and heavier choices up to the official guide's 7–21 g deeper-river range when needed. Feel the lure settle between lifts. The outer Icicles sand channel and a shallow Dangar bank need different weights; neither calls for blindly dragging a heavy head. The flathead guide shows rigging and retrieve.

A separate mulloway bait rig

Take a roughly 2.1 m, 8–15 kg rod, a 4000–8000 reel and 15 kg braid for the deeper-hole session. Rig a running sinker above a rolling swivel, 60–90 cm of 25 kg fluorocarbon leader, then a 5/0–8/0 non-offset circle matched to a whole squid or legal live bait. Keep its gape clear. Use only enough lead to hold the chosen depth. At hard-running Wobby water, waiting for the flow to ease can work better than continually adding weight. Keep this outfit separate from the sand-bank rig and let the circle load under steady winding.

Luderick at Petticoat and Slippery

Use an 8 ft light rod, a 3000 reel and 3 kg braid. Rig a stopper, sliding float and small sinkers or shot above a micro swivel, then about 70 cm of 3 kg fluorocarbon to a size 8 ringed Sneck hook. Balance it so the float's tip shows, add lawful green weed, and set the stopper for the local feeding depth. Petticoat's historical three-metre setting is a start to test, not the depth for Slippery or every tide. The Blackfish Combo with floats and rigs suits this separate float job; our luderick guide explains depth and bite control.

Inspect the working leader after rock contact and fish. If the boat pulls a float away from the shoreline, fix the position and line angle before adding more weight.

Prawns, nippers and worms cover much of the mixed estuary fishing. Bring them from a lawful source. Bait collection still has gear, bag-limit and habitat restrictions; do not dig in seagrass, mangroves or saltmarsh, or take oysters from leases. Keep berley measured and put the bait into the trail it actually makes. The saltwater berley guide covers the difference between feeding the surface and getting a trail down deeper.

Brooklyn bays and the Parsley Bay point

Porto to Parsley and Dead Horse Bay

Dead Horse Bay, also called Lookout Bay in the older local naming, is the useful bay-water option along the Porto-to-Parsley stretch. Whiting and flathead belong in the bay discussion; bream and luderick make the rocky sides a different proposition.

For bream, try the rocky margins on the run-in. Keep the bait working close to that edge instead of treating the entire bay as one uniform patch of water. Luderick are another rock-edge target, with berley useful for drawing fish along the margin.

For a mobile flathead or whiting session, work the bay water with the light outfit rather than persisting at the rocks.

Fishermans Point, Parsley Bay Point and Flat Rock Point

These three names describe the same point on the upstream side of Parsley Bay. They are not three stops to plot into a day's fishing.

There are two approaches. Close to the rocky shoreline, concentrate on bream and luderick. Beside the point, look for the eddy and consider a live bait for mulloway, with bream also a possibility. Watch where the water curls and where your bait is carried before settling the boat. The point's eddy is a different presentation from fishing tight to the rocks.

Keep the approach to Parsley Bay and other boats clear. If the eddy cannot be worked without obstructing navigation, use the shoreline option elsewhere rather than anchoring in the way.

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Wobby shore and the bream edges

Bream Hole

Bream Hole is along the shore upstream of Croppy Point. Its attraction is deeper water close to the shoreline, but the current runs strongly on both tides. Plan around the slowing water rather than assuming that either run-in or run-out will be comfortable throughout.

Bream are the main target, with occasional mulloway and flathead. Dawn and dusk help reduce the disturbance from passing boats. Find the depression with the sounder and fish it while the easing current lets you keep the bait there.

Wobby shore

The deeper water off Wobby is a mulloway option with the same important limitation: the moving tide can run hard. Give yourself time to sound the shoreline and find the hole before slack water, rather than arriving at the turn and starting your search then.

There is no useful fixed sinker weight for every stage of that flow. If the line is streaming away and the bait will not stay in the chosen water, more lead may help, but waiting for the current to ease is often the better plan. Keep the deeper-water session separate from the close-bank bream fishing at Tumbledown.

The sloping bottom and returns above it are the useful clues in this Hawkesbury sounder image. Check an edge like this with another pass, then set the bait's depth and drift to work that part of the slope. If the bait sweeps past, adjust weight or wait for less run. Returns alone do not identify a species.

Tumbledown

Tumbledown lies beyond the developed part of the Wobby shore, before The Icicles farther upstream. It is a bream shoreline where quiet water matters. Low boat traffic is useful by day or night.

For a stationary session, establish a berley trail close to the shore and work nippers or prawns through it. At night, a shoreline drift gives you another way to cover the water, using prawn, worm, mullet gut or yabby baits. Watch the line and the boat together so the bait stays near the bank instead of being towed well out from it.

School mulloway have also been recorded here in summer, though bream remain the main reason to work this bank.

The Icicles

Farther upstream, The Icicles has a sheer rockface entering the water and a sand channel farther out. That gives you a useful change of target without treating every part of the shoreline the same way.

For bream, berley a stretch of the rock edge and make repeat drifts past it. Cast ahead of the boat so the bait reaches the edge before the boat passes. Once the bait has moved away from the shoreline, retrieve and make another cast. Letting it trail farther and farther out changes the water you are fishing.

Prawn, nipper, worm or mullet baits give you sensible starting choices. Early morning, late afternoon and night are worth planning around. If the bream approach is unproductive, move the presentation to the sand channel for flathead. The flathead soft-plastics guide explains bottom contact and controlled lure presentation if you want to make that change with a lure.

Luderick are another possibility against the rockface, but big tides can make that edge difficult to fish. Choose a smaller tide if you want to control a float there.

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Dangar's banks and rocky points

Dangar Island shoals

The shallow sand and mud banks downstream of Dangar Island suit a falling-tide drift. Prawn and nipper baits can produce whiting, bream, flathead and flounder. An early summer start is a useful option, especially if you want a moving, light-tackle session rather than sitting over a mulloway hole.

Keep the bait near the bottom, check the depth as the boat moves and shorten the drift when the water becomes too shallow for your boat. Reset over useful water instead of continuing across a bank simply because that is where the wind is taking you. These are shallow banks, so allow for the water you will need to get back out as the tide falls.

Petticoat

Petticoat is the westernmost tip of Dangar Island. It is a luderick option for smaller tides, particularly in summer, with bream a second target.

Set the boat so you can work a float and berley trail along the shoreline while allowing for both wind and current. Begin with the bait about three metres down, then adjust the float to the actual depth and the response from the fish. If the float races away from the edge, improve the position or choose gentler flow rather than feeding a trail you cannot fish.

Slippery Rocks

Slippery is at Dangar Island's south-western tip. It is another boat-based luderick ground, with smaller tides easier to work and spring and summer the useful seasonal starting point.

Fish a short way off the point, roughly a couple of boat lengths where depth and clearance allow, and use berley to bring the fish into the float's path. Leave enough room for the boat to move safely and for the float to travel along the edge. Adjust the float until the bait works through the berley at the useful depth.

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Creek mouths, the railway bridge and Long Island

Mullet Creek

The entrance offers a falling-tide drift for flathead, flounder, whiting and some bream. Work the mouth as a moving-water session, keeping the bait near the bottom and checking where the drift carries you before making a second pass.

Deeper water near the entrance provides a separate night-time live-bait option for mulloway. Farther inside, the creek is shallow small-craft water: bream belong along the shores, while drifting the main channel gives you a flathead approach. Check your own boat's clearance before entering the upper creek.

Cogra Bay

Cogra Bay's mudbanks, near the Mooney Mooney Creek entrance, are a high-water drift option. Flathead, flounder and whiting are the main mixed-catch targets, with a few bream as well.

Work a light bottom presentation over the flooded banks and shorten the drift before depth becomes a problem. Unlike the falling-tide Mullet Creek entrance session, arrange this one around high water. The Mooney Mooney Creek section covers the separate entrance and creek fishing farther upstream.

Hawkesbury railway bridge

Rail-bridge rehabilitation is underway. The current bridge-works notice sets out the work exclusions and channel arrangements. Keep outside the marked yellow-buoy areas, follow the current navigation markers and minimise wash. Observe the 6-knot limit within 30 m of a structure. The works are phased, so check the current notice before choosing a pylon position.

The railway bridge has a long history as deep-water mulloway country, with bream, flathead and occasional whiting around the structure and luderick close to the eddies. Strong current is the main presentation problem. Slacker water, often around the bottom of the tide, makes it easier to keep a bait near the bottom; increasing lead only helps if there is a lawful, unobstructed place to fish it.

Do not anchor in the navigation channel, tie to the bridge or move into a work exclusion to reach an old fishing position. If the available water does not allow a sensible session, use a creek-mouth drift or another ground. The road bridges are a separate location farther upstream, covered in the Mooney Mooney guide.

Sanitarium Rock

Sanitarium Rock is the large sloping rock roughly halfway along the north-western shore of Long Island. The useful boat approach here is a shoreline drift at night for bream and some flathead. Keep the bait working along the shore, check the drift before repeating it and remain clear of the bridge works and navigation route.

Deeper holes out from the rock provide a different summer option for school mulloway. Sound the water before choosing a presentation. Do not assume that a shoreline bream drift and a bait in the deeper water need the same weight or boat position.

Long Island Point and the landing boundary

Long Island Point is the island's western tip. Long Island is a nature reserve with no visitor access. Do not land or use the island as a shore platform. The adopted NPWS management plan makes that restriction clear.

The old fishing reputation of the point included a shore-based luderick method. It is not a current shore-fishing stop. The adjacent-water boat method described above is at Sanitarium Rock; the reserve restriction does not by itself create a blanket fishing ban on all the water around Long Island.

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Two ways to put a session together

Use the published tide prediction to plan a window, then watch the actual flow where you intend to fish. A high or low water time does not tell you that a particular hole has stopped running. Check the boat's drift and the bait's line angle before choosing the weight or settling into a position.

A summer falling-tide session for whiting and flathead. Start with prawn or nipper baits over the sand and mud below Dangar Island. Keep them near the bottom and watch both the depth and the direction of the drift. If the baits lift well clear, add only enough weight to restore contact. Reset before the bank becomes too shallow. The Mullet Creek entrance is another falling-tide option if its available depth and drift suit your boat; Cogra's high-water banks are a different plan.

A quiet bream session along the rocks. At The Icicles, use a modest berley trail, cast a prawn or nipper bait ahead and watch whether it stays beside the rockface as the boat moves. Retrieve when it leaves that edge, then repeat the useful part of the drift. If traffic or the drift makes that presentation unworkable, stop feeding the same patch. When the outer sand channel can be fished with good bottom contact, change to a flathead bait or soft plastic there. You are changing both the target and the water, rather than simply towing the bream bait farther out.

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A lure-only day with Dean

In June 2016 I went down the Hawkesbury with tournament angler Dean Nash. I had not expected a lure-only outing. Dean had casting decks at both ends of the boat, two sounders, an electric motor and a selection of soft plastics that made quite an impression on me.

I learnt plenty from him, and we finished with the mixed catch pictured here. It was a very enjoyable day on the river. The original June report records the outing.

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Launching and a practical boating note

Parsley Bay is a useful Brooklyn launch, but check the available depth for your boat, the tide, current signs and parking limits. Siltation means you should not assume an all-tide launch. For the upstream end of this guide, Deerubbun Reserve at Mooney Mooney has a boat ramp, parking and toilets.

Check wind, weather and the return tide before launching. Wear an appropriate lifejacket and carry the required safety equipment. On enclosed waters, wearing a lifejacket is compulsory in powerboats up to 4.8 metres when alone or at night; the current lifejacket requirements also cover children and other situations. Keep navigation channels, wharves and ramps clear, and do not anchor within 200 metres of underwater cables. Check the anchoring rules and chart before setting up. Keep the boat, wash and tackle clear of oyster leases.

Pay the NSW recreational fishing fee unless exempt and carry proof. Check the current saltwater limits before retaining fish. Mulloway must be at least 70 cm; the daily bag is one per person, with a two-fish boat limit when two or more fishers are aboard.

For the next reach downstream, use Flint and Steel to Juno Point. For Cow Rock, The Vines, the road bridges and Bar Point, use Mooney Mooney to Bar Point. The Lower Hawkesbury shore guide covers the separate options for a trip on foot.

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