Angler lands fish from his balcony as wild weather brings the seaside to his doorstep

It’s every angler’s dream – the fish that swims right up to your front door.

As storms, wind and rain battered a large chunk of eastern Australia, one Sydney man found a silver lining as his apartment block was surrounded by the rising tides.

Vincent Cotte, from Narrabeen Lake in Sydney’s north, made the best of a bad situation, throwing al line into the water from his balcony, and scoring a quick catch.

“It’s like Christmas,” he shouts gleefully as he reels in the tiny catch before throwing it back to the water below.

“Look at ‘em. There’s heaps of fish.”

• Beachside homes washed away, coast destroyed in 'worst storm in 30 years'

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The video was uploaded to YouTube and is proving one of the more uplifting pieces of footage to come out of storms that have brought widespread damage and risk to human life.

The storms are being called the worst in 30 years and have led to evacuation orders in Sydney and in locations along the coast.

The NSW State Emergency Service took almost 9000 calls for help overnight and many families were evacuated as floodwaters continued to rise.

The storms are now moving south, bringing the damage seen in NSW and Queensland to residents in Victoria and Tasmania.

The bad weather is expected to continue throughout Monday.