Sandgate / Shorncliffe

This jetty has to be one of my favorite haunts for finding a feed of Bream in the evenings/early morning. It can be a bit daunting to know where to find fish here because it's a pretty long jetty. A lot of people go home empty handed because it takes a bit of finess to secure a good fish here.

Most of the time you'll find groups of people near the middle of the jetty where it's covered, or all of the way down the end. If you're chasing Bream,  these spots will generally net you little or nothing quite reliably. Near the bottom of the tide you can net Bream around the middle structure, and if you cast out you've got a shot that "something" might just swim close enough to your bait to notice, but I wouldn't bet on it.

So where are the Bream?

Your mid-size (23 > 30~cm) Bream can often be found right under your feet on the walk down the Jetty. If you pass the 4th bench on the left on the way out, you've likely passed 90% of them. At high tide, the place to target for reliable feeds is between the 2nd bench on the right, and 3rd bench on the left. If the wind/water is relatively still you're going to need to court the support pylons. When the water has more swell & chop then the fish can be found a bit further away midway between pillars. When the swell is going it's usually a good idea to head more shallow where you can't feel as much swell. The fish tend to come to these spots. A few bigger bream also come in under the jetty  as the tide runs out, so be ready for an occasional fight. You'll know a big one when you feel it grab your bait on the run, and it can be quite a fight to keep them from getting your line right around a pillar.

The big boys can be found prowling the inner channel betwen the 2nd right and 3rd left benches around high tide, and the edge of the outer channel (between the 3rd left and 4th left benches) as the tide is running out. This is the off the dark (North) side of the jetty. The light side is productive for Squid in winter months, both Pencil and Tiger. If you look up the jetty using Google maps you can see the large sand-bar running down the shore with the inner sand flat, channel, sand bar, then outer channel. At high tide on relatively calm nights, especially during winter, you can also find good size bream scouring the rocks at the jetty entrance. If you visit during low tide you can see a nice open area about 5m out where you can aim to drop an offering. I find this spot works day & night in the winter where bream generally can't be found underneath the jetty during the busy day traffic.

Typically I'll take along two rods, one cast out with squid in the channel, and one working along underneath with a soft bait. In both cases, a running sinker rig with a #1 ball sinker is more than enough. I'll drop to a #0 when working under the jetty if the winds are light or the fish are more finicky. Casting out into the first channel and sand flats around high-tide you can also find flathead, and rays.

One additional suggestion: If you're planning a morning session I would advise parking up on the street rather than in the car-park, especially on weekends. There are always jackasses with 4WD trying to sqeeze into any available spot and I'd been on the receiving end of a nice grinding scrape down the entire side of my car from one of these idiots.