Shallow thinking scores fish by Jamie Robley

Now that we've reached the warmer months, it's time to grab a light flick stick, a few lures and head down to your local river, lake or bay to enjoy some shallow-water fun.

Bream, whiting and flathead are the target species but that doesn't mean that others like flounder, trevally and long toms won't also get in on the act.

Last summer was a ripper for fishing the shallows here on the Central Coast, with Brisbane Water, Tuggerah Lakes and Lake Macquarie all producing the goods. In fact, from all reports it was a top season right along the NSW coastline.

So with a bit of luck there's a fair chance this season will be just as good or better.

Before we get into the nitty-gritty of how to extract a few fish from the shallows, let's first explain exactly what sort of water depth and areas to look for.

From what I've seen, there's almost no such thing as water too shallow. So a mere 15cm is actually enough for flathead and whiting to poke around in.

Bream will also venture into the extreme shallows at times, especially if food items like pink nippers, prawns or small baitfish are on offer. Generally, though, bream need at least 30cm to swim around in without their backs getting sunburnt.

Overall, anything from 2m or less would be considered shallow water but to get the best results it's important to realise that water you may consider to be too shallow probably isn't.

A sandy bottom tends to attract more fish than thick weed or solid rock, but large expanses of clear sand aren't much good, either. What we're looking for is a mix of sand with motley patches of weed.

Other features to keep an out for are broken oyster shells, holes inhabited by pink nippers, crabs or worms and perhaps some scattered rocks or dead timber. It can also be good to have some deeper water nearby so larger fish can swim back and forth with the tides or to escape the midday sunshine.

In a lot of the places I fish around the local lakes tides have very little, if any, effect. Here, fish are easier to catch early in the morning or later in the afternoon but in Brisbane Water and other tidal systems