Tag Archives: Daiwa Saltist X 962MH

Iluka – The Clarence River and the Bundjalung Headlands – September 2024

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September was a great fishing month on the rocky headlands of the Bundjalung National Park at Iluka. The winds were often from the north or north west with an occasional south westerly/easterly change for a day or two. The westerly element helped to flatten the swell during the early morning fishing sessions. Through the day the wind built up to a stronger and stronger northerly. This would often dirty the water up and make fishing in the afternoons more challenging.

During the transition through our short spring to summer the fishing can be difficult. There were plenty of flathead, tailor and flounder in the river but the bream fishing was the stand out, both in the Clarence River and off the headlands. As the weather warmed up, the local snake population was also on the move looking for mating opportunities. Apparently, lying in the middle of the road is a favourite pastime for horny pythons.

The mulloway/jewfish were everywhere, especially 40 to 60 cm fish. I am concluding through experience that light and tide changes are a big factor in their decision to feed. Early starts and first light fishing produced the best fish for me. Over the month I caught 12 legal sized keeper mulloway, between 70cm and 86cm and perhaps 40-50 smaller fish. I also missed plenty of fish after heavy runs and pulled hooks. I kept a few of the bigger fish I landed for supper but returned 90% of my catch to the water.

I was generally fishing with the lighter of my two rock fishing rods – the Daiwa Saltist X MH962 matched with my Daiwa Saltist 10000 size reel. I was running 40lb braid and usually a 40 or 50lb fluorocarbon leader down to a 10 gram to 20 gram jighead and a big GULP soft plastic. I am not sure that colour is important but a higher contrast between two colours seems to work well. I think this is the secret to the success of the Nuclear Chicken and Lime Tiger colours that I like to fish with. I like to use the 6 inch Squid Vicious pattern GULP soft plastic out on the headlands.

86 cm Iluka mulloway
82 cm Iluka mulloway
70 / 76 cm Iluka mulloway
82cm Iluka mulloway

The biggest fish I landed came three days and four days after the full moon, respectively. However I tangled with a couple of fish I couldn’t stop just a few days after the new moon at the beginning of the month.

Another great month of fishing in Iluka.

Richmond River – South Ballina wall – 16 April 2021

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About a week later I decided to return to the South Ballina rockwall to see if the jewfish/ mulloway were still around. The new moon had arrived a couple of days previously. The tide was running in and would be high at about 11.00 am. The water in the river was still dirty but it was no longer opaque. The dolphins had appeared again. A couple of them had very small offspring under close supervision.

The water was beginning to clear

I started early but still only managed to reach the start of the rock wall after first light. I had a couple of casts with big soft plastics in the spot where I had caught the jewfish previously. I got no hits so after about 20 casts I moved down nearer to the end of the rockwall.

I was fishing with my heavier spinning rig –  Daiwa TD SOL III LT 6000 DH reel and Daiwa Saltist X MH 962 rod. I had 40 lb braid and a 30 lb fluorocarbon leader down to a 1/4 ounce, size 1/0 hook jighead. I chose one of my all time favorite soft plastics the GULP 4″ Minnow on the Watermelon Pearl colour. This is pretty much as close to a pilchard/ whitebait as you can get. After a while, I felt a couple of frenetic tailor attacks. The soft plastic had been munched but was largely in one piece so I cast it out again. The fish struck hard as it sank and then it hooked itself and took off. It was a decent tailor about 45 cm long. I landed it safely, bled it and put it in the keeper bag.

I carried on casting the same mangled soft plastic until a bream pulled it off my jighead. I decided to drop down to the lighter of my two rock fishing combinations – a Shimano Stella 4000 reel matched with a Daiwa Crossfire 1062 rod. This is loaded with 30 lb braid and 16 lb fluorocarbon leader. I dropped the jighead to a 1/6th ounce, size 1/0 hook. I put on the GULP 3″ Minnow in the Lime Tiger colour and started casting again. The first taker, to my surprise, was a dart. Things went quiet for a while then the dart came back again and I caught a couple more.

After an hour of not much action the tailor arrived again and I caught two small choppers. When the tailor moved on, the bream took their place and I caught four fish – all between 25 cm and 30 cm long. I released them all.

A few different species from the South Ballina wall

I had not found the jewfish/mulloway but I expect they were there on the bottom of the runout tide, before dawn. The schools of mullet kept hovering around the rivermouth and tracing the rock wall, so there was plenty of food to tempt them.

As the tide peaked and the current slackened off I gave up. The water was now very clear on the ocean side of the wall. I am looking forward to the tailor and bream getting much bigger over the next couple of months.

Richmond River – South Ballina Wall – Jewfish – 10 April 2021

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By mid-April the water in all the major estuaries of the Northern Rivers area was a still a very dirty brown colour – particularly at the bottom of the tide. The initial flush from the March floods had washed a lot of debris down the rivers and out to sea. It had also washed plenty of mullet and other baitfish down to the river mouths. Jewfish/ Mulloway love to hang around in these conditions, ambushing mullet as they are washed out into the ocean.

I decided to try my luck on the south rockwall at the Richmond River mouth at South Ballina. As the road out to the wall is still closed it is a fair walk. I arrived at about 5.30 am, parked at the gate, got my gear together and started walking. I reached the rockwall just as the sun was coming over the horizon at about 6.00 am. High tide would be at about 7.30 am and we were two days away from the new moon.

  • dirty water at Ballina
Dirty water dawn at the Richmond River mouth

A team of keen Korean fishermen had passed me on my way out to the wall. They had been smart enough to use mini foldable electric bikes for the journey out. My tackle budget won’t stretch to one of those anytime soon. They were fishing at the end of the rock wall so I decided to start on the ocean side of the wall, fairly close to the beach. The water runs out of the river mouth and forms a big eddy that circles round and carves a good gutter in the corner of the beach.

Even though the sun was now well and truly up, I still hoped there might be a monster mulloway cruising the beach gutter. I loaded the heavier of my rock spinning outfits (DAIWA Saltist X) with a 1/4 ounce, size 1/0 hook jighead and a GULP 5′ Paddleshad in the pink colour. I was using 30lb braid and 30lb fluorocarbon leader. I cast out about 10 metres from the wall, let the plastic waft down in the swell and slowly started to retrieve it along the bottom. I felt a few gentle hits and pulled up the soft plastic to see something had tried to pull it off the jighead – this is usually what the bream do. I cast a few more times with no result. At about 6.20 am I cast out and let the soft plastic sit for 20 seconds before starting my retrieve. This did the trick and as I lifted the rod tip I set the hook on a fish. It was a small school jewfish about 50 cm long.

That was the start of a great mornings fishing. Over the next few hours high tide came and went but I kept catching small jewfish. The biggest was about 60 cm long and the smallest was just over 40 cm. I lost count but I caught somewhere between 10 and 15 fish. They were all too small to keep and so I released them all. Mixed in among them I caught a few solid bream and a couple of small tailor that destroyed my soft plastics. The profile, size and colour of the soft plastics did not seem to be much of a factor. I was using GULPS all day but I swapped between the Crazylegs Jerkshad, the Paddleshad, the Turtlebackworm and the straightforward Minnow – and they all caught fish. At one point I swapped to a Croaker hard bodied lure to see if this might attract a bigger one but this did not work.

Lots of school jewfish on the ocean side

A few days earlier one of the Koreans had successfully landed a 130 cm mulloway off the ocean side of the end of the wall and there were several piles of big scales that suggested a few other anglers had been successful. The big ones were certainly out there. The jewfish specialists seem to be convinced that soft plastics will get you fish up to about a metre long but for the monsters you need a big hard bodied mullet imitation or a live mullet. One day I may have the patience to put this theory to the test!

Iluka – Woody Head – 5 March 2021

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When I arrived to fish at Woody Head on Friday, the swell was around the 1.2 m level and rising. There was a fairly brisk south easterly breeze and it was picking up. At least it had finally stopped raining. Conditions were fairly hairy – the water was still very murky and stirred up and the surf was crashing pretty hard into the rock platform. It was now about a week after the full moon.

I started just after first light by casting 60g metal lures around but this did not stir up any fish. The tide and swell was too high to fish to the north east, off the rock known as ‘Barnacle Bob’. It is usually too hard to get to apart from at absolute low tide on a very calm day. I settled on fishing about 30 metres to the south.

I was using my fairly new DAIWA Saltist X 962 MH rod matched with a TD SOL SOL III LT 6000D-H spinning reel. I was using 40lb braid and a 30lb fluorocarbon leader.I put a GULP Crazylegs Jerkshad in the Lime Tiger colour on a 3/8th ounce 1/0 hook size jighead and cast it out.

In my experience in this spot, if the jewfish or good bream are around, they are generally schooled up very close to the base of the rocks. That is a very difficult place to leave your soft plastic for any length of time and I can only imagine that the sea floor coral bommies are covered in jigheads! I put in a few casts, pausing for as long as I dared while the lure was in the strike zone. Eventually my strategy paid off and my rod tip bent over. It was a solid fish but my drag was pretty tight and I soon turned its head. Timing is everything in this spot and if you are lucky, the swell will wash the fish up the stepped ledges to your feet. That is exactly what happened and I looked down at an 80cm jewfish. It was 5.22 am and the sun would not be fully over the horizon for another 20 minutes.

I continued fishing through dawn and caught a decent bluefin trevally on the same soft plastic and couple of ambitious bream. Then I got greedy. At about 8.00 am it was low tide and I convinced myself that I could stand a little further to the north and cast a big stickbait out to the northeast, to a spot where I was sure there would be fish. I watched the swell and walked out between the bigger wave sets and cast out. I did this about four times safely and then my lure got caught in the cunjevoi and as I pulled it free, my line tangled around the rod tip. I was looking up at the tip when a wave came from nowhere and took my feet from under me. It washed me down over the barnacles and I end up floating in the pond of water that pools up behind ‘Barnacle Bob’. I had my lifejacket on but the water was only about a meter deep and the residual swell was gently pushing me ashore. Unfortunately I had washed up right in front another angler who had been fishing for bream in the wash. I had completely buggered up his bite but I think he was quite relieved when I emerged in one piece from the water.

I stood up clutching my rod. I patted myself down and I was still in one piece with all limbs operational and no blood streaming from anywhere. I had had a very lucky escape. I later realised the barnacles had left their mark on my right buttock and elbow but otherwise I was just bruised. I am confessing to my stupidity in the hope that it will be an example of what not to do for others. But I am also a slow learner as I did almost exactly the same thing about 11 years ago and still have the scars on my left thigh to prove it. Always remember rock fishing is one of the most dangerous sports out there. If you really have to stop and think about whether or not a spot it is safe enough to fish – it isn’t .

I limped off with my jewfish.