The excellent mulloway fishing around Iluka continued in January 2025.

In early January the weather was kind and I had a few great morning sessions fishing the rock ledges at Woody Head. The new moon had appeared on New Years Eve and I caught several solid 70 cm plus mulloway / jewfish and plenty of smaller fish in the days following.

On the 5th of January low tide was at about 5:30 am. Sunrise was at 4:59 am.  It was five days after the new moon. There was a light south westerly breeze and about a metre of swell. I did not have any luck fishing with a soft plastic through first light. So just before dawn I swapped to a hard bodied minnow. After a couple of casts I foul hooked a tailor.

I moved along the ledge and cast through a few different spots with a couple of hits from small tailor.

At about 6.15 am I swapped back to a big Gulp 7″ Crazylegs Jerkshad in the orange bellied shrimp colour that I loaded onto a 22 gram jighead. I was fishing with my Daiwa Saltist X MH962 rod and Saltist 10000 reel, 50 lb fluorocarbon leader and 40lb braid.

I let the lure settle on the bottom, a few feet from the base of the ledge. I counted to twenty, letting the soft plastic flail a little in the current and hoping it wouldn’t get snagged. As I went to give it a hop off the bottom, I felt a solid thud. I paused for maybe three seconds,  then struck hard. The rod bent over and I felt the initial weight of a good sized fish before it started stripping line on its first run. It went straight under the ledge and the leader was immediately rubbing. I kept the line tight but eased off on the rod pressure slightly and looked at the swell. As the wave came in I dropped the rod tip for a moment then heaved it back up as the wave sucked the water back out. Fortunately the fish came out with it.

It was heavy and made a few powerful short lunges. I loosened the drag just a little and looked for a landing spot. I had to use the swell but a good set would be strong enough to push it up to the next level of ledge below me. This rod could subdue it but not lift it. I waited and kept its head out of the cunjevoi covered rocks. A big set started to roll in . I was going to get wet. I tightened the drag and kept in contact with the fish as the wave lifted it straight past me, up onto the rocks. I grabbed the leader to stop it washing back in.

I had landed my personal best Mulloway that weighed in at 17.6 kg.

There were plenty of whitebait on the headlands and I caught tailor on just about every lure in the tackle box. I also found a few good sized dart and trevally.It was a great start to the year.