Thursday

After a disappointing morning on the rocks, I decided to try fishing the Clarence River in the afternoon. I drove along to the Browns Rocks area. I passed the wharf and drove down to the area in front of the old oyster farm and then put on my waders.

There is a large section of weed beds just to the south of the oyster farm. The weed beds grow on the edge of the main river channel and hold plenty of bait. All the recent rain had left the water murky, but I arrived just before the top of the tide and so the water was as salty as it would get.

I was fishing with my light spin combination and decided to come right down to 8lb fluorocarbon leader. I started with a GULP 2” Shrimp soft plastic in the Banana Prawn colour. The first few casts produced a few hits from small fish. They were very aggressive so I expect they were small Tailor. They often hang around here.

I moved along, parallel with the shore, casting into the run in tide and retrieving fairly fast to avoid getting tangled in the weed. I caught and released a couple of tiny Bream. Then I suddenly had a much bigger fish on. It was not very fast but it had plenty of power. It was not moving like a Flathead and was making plenty of long runs. I walked slowly back to shore and tightened the drag as much as I dared. I saw some silver and some stripes and then realized it was a good sized Luderick. I landed it and decided it would be dinner. I do not get these very often and they taste good. Once more the GULP soft plastic had proved irresistible.

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The session continued with a Flathead, a chopper Tailor and a few more small Bream. There were plenty of fish around but no big ones. I should come back to this spot at dawn or dusk – one day!