I was a away during September so did not get to fish. In October our short Northern Rivers winter was already fading. It was a dry month with rainfall about 50% below average.
The Clarence river was running clear. There were plenty of flathead in close to the bank. The trevally were still patrolling and on dawn and dusk. There were plenty of small jewfish hanging around the drop offs. The bream were around, but elusive.
Out on the headlands, when the swell dropped off, I went in search of bigger fish. The tailor are pretty much a permanent fixture at dawn and dusk around the rocky points of Iluka. I was trying to catch jewfish/ mulloway and found a few in their usual hideouts. The tailor will attack anything they pass but I like using the various long thin slow sinking garfish impersonations and these are proving very successful for me.
January rolled into February and we had a bit of rain and a south easterly blow. After the massive floods the year before everyone was on edge. But the rain did not last long and there was to be no repeat inundation in northern NSW.
The river was full of jelly prawns and other bait schools and fished well for flathead. The small tailor were everywhere. They were a pest when trying to fish for flathead with a soft plastic lure. You would feel a bump and grab on the drop and pull up a munched and now useless soft plastic.
I caught plenty of flathead and had a few good fishing sessions on the flats nearer the mouth of the Clarence River at Yamba. On one occasion I hooked a small flathead that was then eaten by bigger one at my feet. I dropped the rod tip and waited for about 30 seconds and when I took up the slack, sure enough the bigger fish took off. I pulled it around for about five minutes and then it either regurgitated the fish or just spat it out. I reeled the little one back in it looked completely unharmed. I took the hook out of its lip and it swam off.
I was able to get out to fish the rocky headlands on a few days. I caught plenty of small jewfish/ mulloway at Woody Head and Iluka Bluff, but none of February’s fish were big enough to keep. There were also a few tailor schools hanging around at dawn and dusk.
As Covid 19 continued to wreak havoc all around, I carried on fishing. Those of us in New South Wales were locked out of Queensland. Everyone was locked out of Western Australia. Victoria was open, then closed, then open again. I have no idea what was going on in Tasmania.
The swell was big and we had a bit of rain. I focused on fishing with my light gear and soft plastics lures over the sand flats, on the edge of the Clarence River at Browns Rocks. I found a few different species. I caught flathead, bream, tailor and quite a few small jewfish. The flathead seemed comfortable eating just about any type of lure, once you found them.
Plenty of flathead in the Clarence River in November
I was using a mix of different soft plastics but, as usual, the GULP Minnows where the star performers. I also caught fish on the new Berkley Shimma prawn and a packet of DUO Realis knot tailed soft plastics in a green colour, that somebody sent me to try. I was usually fishing these with 10lb fluorocarbon leader on 1/8th ounce, size 1/0 hook jigheads.
There were quite a few small jewfish around Browns Rocks
At one point I noticed the water close to shore was teaming with some kind of tiny jelly fish larvae. They were all along the shoreline for a few days. There was plenty of bait around and the pelicans and gulls chased the schools relentlessly. They only got out of the way when the dolphins turned up.
The next morning the swell came up and the rocky headlands of the Bundjalung National Park were too tough to fish. I had a bit of a lie in and then drove up the Clarence River to fish on Goodwood Island at Browns Rocks. There are fish to be found all the way along the banks of Goodwood Island. At this time of year it is mainly bream, flathead and schools of 30 cm to 40 cm marauding tailor.
On this particular morning I arrived about 7.00 am and drove down to fish an area of the river bank, where I could see the birds dive bombing some bait. It was about 7.00 am and I was fishing with my light spin rig and a 10lb fluorocarbon leader. I tied on a 1/8 ounce, size 1/0 hook jighead and GULP Minnow in the Camo colour. By the time I got organised the birds and bait had moved on. The tide was running in.
I cast my soft plastic up into the incoming tide and hopped it along the bottom, with lots of long pauses. It was a cold morning and the water was very clear despite the recent rain. A small flathead about 30 cm long, was the first taker. It grabbed my lure as it lay still, beside a fallen tree. I kept casting in the same spot and found two more flathead. One was bigger but probably not legal to keep. Dusky flathead need to be 36cm long in New South Wales. The other was a little smaller. I moved along the bank but that was it for the morning.
Flathead fishing – Goodwood Island
The next morning I tried again and started a little earlier. This time the birds were still around when I started casting and I could see there was a school of tailor chasing small herring along the shoreline. I knew they were tailor as, on my first cast my jighead and soft plastic were almost immediately bitten off.
I re-rigged and put on a new soft plastic. This time it was a GULP Minnow in the green and black speckled orange Lime Tiger colour. I carried on moving along the bank casting and retrieving and soon found a decent flathead – 43 cm long. I released it and carried on. The next taker was a solid bream about 35 cm long.
Bream and flathead from the Clarence River
The fish were on the bite and I caught a couple more smaller bream. I swapped up to a bigger GULP Crazylegs Jerkshad soft plastic in the same colour and kept casting. Nearly all the flathead had taken the soft plastics at the base of the rock wall, that lines the river bank. So this is where I kept pausing. This tactic worked again at about 8.00 am and I connected with a solid 50 cm flathead that headed for the middle of the river. After a short fight, I had it at my feet. I took a picture and let it go. I decided that would do for the morning
A decent Clarence River bream
That afternoon I drove over to the north side of Goodwood Island to fish through until sunset. The wind dropped and the water was pretty flat. I had a few grabs from what I think where passing tailor and then caught a couple more keeper flathead which I took home for supper.
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