THIS year my wife and I are celebrating our 50th year in Port Stephens.

Coming from a recreational fishing family in Tweed Heads you can imagine my first impression as we drove along Shoal Bay Road for the first time.

The headlands and huge expanse of water was, and still is, breathtaking.

The view from the lookout on Gan Gan Hill, stretching from Karuah to Tea Gardens, through the headlands to all the outer islands left me asking, as a fisherman, “where do I start?”.

Settling in Fingal Bay I have had the unique opportunity to catch cracker snapper from an 11-foot tinny less than 800 metres from the beach.

Where else on the east coast can you do that?

Such has been my fascination around Fingal that I have rarely ventured to other iconic snapper spots off Fishermans Bay and Boat Harbour.

Occasionally I will head off to Broughton Island for a day or two but I always come home thinking the fishing is just as good off the Outer Light.

When I come to think of it, I haven’t even been fishing inside the harbour for ages.

When I need to know what is happening inside the port, I only need to give Wayne Coles a call.

“Colesy” and his sons Mat and Ben are fair dinkum champions who target just about everything that moves inside the heads. Bream, flathead, whiting, mulloway and crabs don’t stand a chance when the Coles crew is on the prowl.

Recently it has been Bluefin Tuna (Longtails) and Mackerel Tuna that have been thrashing around, feasting on small white bait and frogmouth pilchards since August, that have caught the attention of the Coles boys.

Since mid-August the team have landed around 14 thumping great Bluefin up to 1.15metres in length, tipping the scales at 12 to 18kg.

If that’s not enough the Coles clan have caught magnificent Mackerel Tuna from 8-10kg since September.

You may think that the team is worn out and need a rest.

No way!

It’s flathead time, with monsters lurking throughout the entire system from Shoal Bay to Karuah.

By the way, I didn’t mention that all the big fish are released back into the system to fight another day.

Talking to Colesy, we agree that this place, Port Stephens, is something very special.

How lucky are we to live in the middle of an aquatic paradise. This is not a question – it is a statement of fact!

By John ‘Stinker’ CLARKE