The Clarence River at Browns Rocks – Early November 2021

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.

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.

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.

Plenty of bait schools in November