Koonawarra Bay Jetty (Lake Illawarra)

Crown Lands has rebuilt a string of public jetties around Lake Illawarra with non-slip mesh decks, and two of them reach well out from quiet foreshore reserves far from the entrance. The focus here is the Koonawarra Bay jetty, a T-headed walkway of roughly 100 metres running out from Lakeside Drive Reserve at Kanahooka into the shallow western bay near the mouth of Brooks Creek. Purry Burry Point jetty at Primbee, about five kilometres east across the lake, is a longer L-shaped structure off a bushy point and fishes the same way. Both put you over sand, weed and drop-offs that hold the lake's bread-and-butter bream, flathead, whiting and luderick, without the crowds and fast water of the Windang entrance channel.

Fish off the end and sides of the jetty, working the edge where the weed beds fall away into slightly deeper sand. Flathead respond to a soft plastic hopped slowly along the bottom, or to whitebait or a fresh green lake prawn drifted on a light running rig. Bream sit around the jetty piles and under any shade line, taking peeled prawn or a small lure worked tight to the structure, while whiting want a nipper or worm on a long-shank hook over the clean sand. Luderick come to a float rigged with green weed through the cooler months. Summer nights on the dark of the moon bring the lake prawning crowd out with scoop nets and lights.

Dusky flathead are the main event, kept inside a 36–70cm slot on a bag of 5, with anything over 70cm going back as a breeder. Yellowfin bream are a year-round catch at 25cm on a bag of 10 shared with tarwhine, and sand whiting fire through the warmer months at 27cm on a bag of 20 shared across the whiting. Luderick run through autumn and winter at 27cm with a bag of 10, and flounder turn up over the sandy patches too. Prawning counts as fishing in NSW: the bag is 10 litres of prawns per person per day, and a scoop net's hoop can be no more than 0.6 metres across.

Mullet Creek, which enters the lake about 1.4 kilometres east of the jetty on the far side of Kanahooka Point, is closed to every kind of net except a landing net along its whole length, so anyone prawning from the Kanahooka Boat Ramp side should keep the scoop net out of the creek and on the open lake. Brooks Creek, the smaller creek about 500 metres west of the jetty, enters the lake separately. The trap and prawn-net bans most people associate with Lake Illawarra apply in a defined area at the Windang entrance, at the far end of the lake. Fresh green lake prawns and live nippers out-fish frozen bait for flathead and whiting. The Kanahooka Boat Ramp, about 750 metres east along the foreshore, has its own two jetties and kept its fish-cleaning facilities through the upgrades, so clean the catch there rather than on the walkway.

The Koonawarra Bay jetty sits on Lakeside Drive at Kanahooka, with a small sealed car park directly behind it, a grassed reserve and a public toilet at the western end of the reserve near the Brooks Creek bridge. Purry Burry Point jetty is reached from Purry Burry Avenue, Primbee, by a short walk along the reserve path to the point. Both jetties have flat mesh decks, which makes them among the most mobility-friendly fishing platforms on the lake. They are good family jetties as long as small children stay within arm's reach on the deck.

This is still lake water rather than an entrance channel, so the tide matters less than the wind and the light. A light westerly or a calm morning is ideal, while a fresh north-easter or southerly chops the bay up and makes bite detection hard on light gear. Dawn, dusk and the change of light are the prime windows, and the flathead bite improves as the water warms from spring. After heavy rain Brooks Creek and Mullet Creek push dirty water into this end of the lake, which tends to put the bream and whiting off for a few days.

These are calm, enclosed lake jetties rather than ocean structures, so the risks are modest but real. The mesh decks are non-slip, but a slip off the side or the head of a jetty is still a fall into the lake, so small children need an adult beside them and a lifejacket is cheap insurance. Watch for boats and jet skis moving between the lake and the Kanahooka ramp, especially on summer weekends. There is little shade on either jetty, so sun protection and water matter on a long session, and night prawning on the lake edges calls for a headlamp and a buddy.

Yes. The public jetties around the lake, including Koonawarra Bay at Kanahooka and Purry Burry Point at Primbee, are open to land-based fishing and were rebuilt by Crown Lands with non-slip mesh decks. A current NSW Recreational Fishing Fee receipt is needed unless you are exempt.

Bream, dusky flathead, sand whiting, luderick and flounder are the lake's main land-based species, with prawns on summer nights. Dusky flathead must be between 36 and 70cm to keep with a bag of 5, bream are 25cm on a bag of 10 shared with tarwhine, and sand whiting 27cm on a bag of 20 shared across the whiting.

A hand scoop or dip net is the standard tool for lake prawning. Mullet Creek, which enters the lake about 1.4 kilometres east of the jetty beyond Kanahooka Point, is closed to all nets except a landing net along its whole length, so keep the scoop net out of the creek and stay on the lake side of its mouth. Hoop and lift nets, hand-hauled prawn nets, push or scissors nets and crab and lobster traps are banned in the defined entrance area at Windang.

On Lakeside Drive at Kanahooka, on the north shore of Koonawarra Bay about 500 metres east of the Brooks Creek bridge, with a small car park right behind it. The Kanahooka Boat Ramp, with two more jetties and fish-cleaning facilities, is about 750 metres further east along the foreshore.