Tom Uglys Bridge (Georges River)

Tom Uglys Point Reserve is the wedge of seawall and car park tucked under the northern end of the Tom Uglys bridges at Blakehurst, where the Princes Highway crosses the Georges River. It is about as close to park-and-fish as Sydney gets — Fishing Monthly describes a concrete platform where you can park right next to where you are going to cast. The river pinches in at the bridges, the tide runs hard past the pylons, and bream, tailor, luderick, whiting and the odd mulloway work that current line within an easy lob of the wall. The fishing is from the reserve, not the bridge: Transport for NSW policy treats fishing from its road bridges as prohibited, and the shared path along the deck is no exception.

Fish the tip of the seawall and the eastern face beside it, working baits back toward the first pylons where the current wraps around the abutment. Like Captain Cook Bridge downstream, it fishes better on the run-out, when bait gets flushed past the structure — start around the top of the tide and stay for the first few hours of the fall. Lightly weighted peeled prawn or pilchard strips under a slow trickle of bread-and-pilchard berley bring bream and trevally up the wall, while luderick anglers float green weed along the edge through the cooler months. Small soft plastics and blades hopped down the drop-off find flathead and bream, a metal slice thrown at dawn catches the tailor when they push through, and a strip of fresh mullet soaked on the bottom after dark is the mulloway play.

Yellowfin bream are the bread and butter, 25 cm on a bag of 10 shared with tarwhine, and they are here every month of the year. Tailor run the current from autumn into winter at 30 cm and a bag of 10, and luderick work the wall over the same cooler months at 27 cm and a bag of 10. Silver trevally turn up year-round at 30 cm on a bag of 10 shared across the trevallies, sand whiting fill in over summer at 27 cm on a bag of 20 shared across the whiting, and dusky flathead sit on the sand edges from spring into autumn — keep only fish between 36 cm and 70 cm, bag 5. Mulloway are the bonus fish rather than the plan: 70 cm minimum and a bag of one per person.

Bring a long-handled landing net, because lifting a decent bream straight up a seawall on 6lb line is how most of them are lost. Bring your bait in with you, too — oysters may not be taken anywhere in Botany Bay or the Georges River, and Kogarah Bay, which starts on a line running east from Tom Uglys Point, is closed to taking any bivalve or whelk, foreshore included. The reserve sits on the downstream side of the bridges, inside the Botany Bay and lower Georges River PFAS advice zone: mulloway, silver trevally and tailor carry weekly serving caps, flathead and luderick are capped for young children, and Australian salmon from Botany Bay are catch-and-release only. Bream and sand whiting were tested and need no PFAS serving advice, which makes them the sensible fish to keep for a feed.

The reserve car park sits right on the water at the northern end of the bridges, and the road layout feeds it from the southbound Princes Highway lanes just before the bridge, so northbound traffic has to loop back around. The car park is small. From the car it is a few flat metres of concrete to the wall, which makes this one of the easier spots on the river for anyone who would rather not carry gear far. Public toilets are not something to count on here, so plan accordingly. For a second angle on the same bridge, Fishing Monthly notes a small wharf on the southern (Sylvania) side that juts out toward the first pylon — check it is signed for public use before fishing it.

This is sheltered estuary water and fishes in most weather, which makes it a reliable fallback when the coast is blown out. The tide matters more than the wind: the run-out is the productive window, and the slack around the turn goes quiet. A north-easter blows straight onto the eastern face and chops up the surface, so a westerly or a still morning is more comfortable for light-line bait work. Heavy rain in the catchment browns the river for a few days — bream go off the bite, but flathead and mulloway often switch on as bait is washed down.

The seawall drops straight into deep water that runs hard on a big tide, and a fall here is into cold, fast current with no easy way back up, so keep children well back from the edge. Oyster growth on the wall and pylons cuts hands and lines. The navigation channel runs under the bridges, and boats from the nearby motor boat club and ramps funnel through it, so look before casting long. The car park is tight and busy with traffic coming off the highway — mind kids and gear between cars. Finally, follow the PFAS dietary advice before keeping mulloway, trevally or tailor for the table.

Not from the bridge itself. Transport for NSW policy treats fishing from its road bridges as prohibited, and that covers the shared path along the deck as well as the traffic lanes. The fishing is from the banks: Tom Uglys Point Reserve on the northern (Blakehurst) side has a concrete seawall where you can park beside where you cast, and Fishing Monthly notes a small wharf on the southern (Sylvania) side, which is worth checking for public-access signage first. A NSW Recreational Fishing Fee is required to fish here, as everywhere in NSW.

In the small car park at Tom Uglys Point Reserve, right on the water at the northern end of the bridges in Blakehurst. It is fed from the southbound Princes Highway lanes just before the bridge, so northbound drivers have to loop back around. Public toilets are not something to count on.

The run-out. As at Captain Cook Bridge downstream, the falling tide is the one to fish here, because it flushes bait past the pylons and along the seawall. Get set up as the tide tops out and stay for the first few hours of the ebb, ideally at dawn, dusk or after dark for the bigger bream and the odd mulloway.

The bridge is the boundary between two NSW PFAS dietary-advice zones. The reserve fishes the downstream side, where adults are advised to cap mulloway at two serves a week, silver trevally at five and tailor at six, with tighter limits for children aged two to six, each limit assuming only that one species is eaten that week, and Australian salmon from Botany Bay are catch-and-release only. Upstream of the bridge the caps tighten — mulloway drops to one serve a week for everyone. Yellowfin bream and sand whiting were tested and need no PFAS advice, so they are the fish to keep, within the 25 cm bream and 27 cm whiting limits.