Side Scan Analysis – Gladesville Bridge Area Pt 1, Sydney Harbour
In this edition of our side scan analysis we are taking a look at a very popular fishing location in Sydney Harbour. The area around Gladesville Bridge is a pinch point in the Parramatta River, has deep holes and hidden reefs attracting plenty of baitfish and bigger predators.
This area is quite large so I have broken this blog into two parts. This time we will be looking at the Western side of the bridge.
Even though I recorded 6 passes I still ended up missing a little slice down the middle (sorry). I’m looking at moving to a setup where I can link my sounder to a laptop in the boat which should improve things in the future!
I’m also trying a new colour scheme which I hope makes things easier to see on the maps.
So enough chit chat, let’s look at some pictures off the sounder. ***CLICK IMAGES TO ENLARGE***
Location 1 – Blackwall Point, Chiswick
The sandstone cliffs that line this section continue under water plunging down to depths of 10m very close to the shoreline.
It’s very common to find big schools of bait moving through this section followed by tailor and mulloway.
On this day there was a big school of bait holding about 15m from the shoreline.
Location 2 – Old Gladesville Bridge
This spot is very interesting. It is the location of the Old Gladesville Bridge with the old buttresses now popular shore-based fishing locations.
On the Five Dock (south) side the sounder picks up remnants of the first old bridge pylon. This supported the opening span of the bridge.
The rubble pile rises about 2.5m off the bottom and we can see a very good quality fish holding next to this structure. The smaller arches would be 40cm tailor that were occasionally busting up on the surface.
Faint hard returns on the above map show where the less bulky pylons extended across the rest of the river. Try Googling “Old Gladesville Bridge” for some interesting historical photos of the structure.
Location 3 – Huntleys Point
Along the northern side there is a huge hole that drops down to 17.5m.
We can see a number of bait schools sitting along the edge of the hole but nothing else is home.
Notice the amount of reef on the bottom through this section. It looks very fishy but not today!
Location 4 –Gladesville Bridge
I only got a glance at this spot as a Sydney Ferries RiverCat was about to mow me down.
Check out the bottom structure on the sidescan image. Looks a lot like a wreck or pile of debris scattered over the bottom.
There is a huge school of very densely packed bait with some quality fish arches showing on the far right of the down imaging screens.
That’s it for the western side – stay tuned for our look at the eastern side coming soon!
Equipment Used:
Sounder: Humminbird Helix 5 SI GPS
Range: 30m
Sensitivity: 12
Contrast: 10
Speed: 3
Boat Speed: 3.5kts
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