Phil Atkinson

Phil Atkinson has been sportfishing (primarily in NSW) for the last 25 years, growing up near Woy Woy on the Central Coast of NSW Phil owned a small boat before a bike. With a father who was a keen fisherman, most weekends from as long as he can remember were spent in chase of bream, jew, tailor, flathead, and crabs. The families regular possies were the Hawkesbury and Brisbane water systems and if he wasn’t fishing with his family it was with his mates on the weekend, often spending all night on the water in the search of bream and jew.

Through his teens Phil spent most of his weekend daylight hours chasing pelagics from the rocks, mainly around the South Avoca and Little Beach area. In this time he caught spanish mackerel, cobia, bluefin tuna, yellowfin tuna, kingfish, and an uncountable number of bonito and other smaller pelagic species from the Central Coast rocks.

When old enough to drive a car Phil diversified his fishing, and wasted no time joining the “LBG circus” beating a path down to the big fish ledges at Jervis Bay on the South Coast of NSW. Since then Phil has been a member of the St George and Lake Macquarie Sportfishing clubs, and has made many significant captures from the beach, rocks, estuaries and freshwater. One of Phil’s most significant captures was a 120 kg black marlin taken from Eve’s Ravine in 1987, since then Phil has been involved in the making of two LBG videos, “The Landbased Addiction”, and “Marlin Off the Rocks”.

Nowadays living near Coffs Harbour, with wife Melissa and 5 kids, Phil enjoys all types of sportfishing chasing bass, jacks, jew, mackerel, flathead, cod, longtail tuna, cobia, trevally, blackfish and bream.

Phil Co-hosted with Ian Miller “The Australian Fishing Series” on The LifeStyle channel and Phil is a regular host on the “Reel Life” radio show on 2SM. Prior to working part time on 2SM Phil hosted fishing radio on 2UE and 2GB.

Phil is a contracted regular feature writer for Modern Fishing and writes the “This Sportfishing Life” column in Modern Fishing. Phil also writes the “Coffs Connection” column for NSW Fishing Monthly.

Phil's Site Articles:

Glenbawn In Winter
Western Cod
North Coast Bassing
The Red Bandits