August was a great month for winter fishing in the lower reaches of the Clarence River. The mornings were cool with mainly light south westerly winds. The water temperature was a degree or so warmer than August the year before averaging about 20.5 C. The warmer waters may have been attractive to the flathead. I caught plenty through the month in virtually all sections of the river. I caught the occasional bream but it has definitely not been a good bream year. There was plenty of bait and the cormorants and pelicans herded it around in the shallows. Out on the rocky headlands there were plent ..read more

In June, winter finally arrived on the Clarence River. We had plenty of bright and calm sunrises. The early mornings were the time to fish with light south easterly and south westerly winds, first thing. I fished the rocky headlands and caught plenty of jewfish/ mulloway, trevally but only very few bream. Whilst the mulloway definitely prefer certain spots to school up, they seemed to be everywhere in the half an hour between first light and dawn. I caught smaller fish on all the headlands but could only land the bigger ones at Woody Head. Some nice gutters had formed on Ten Mile Beach and I ..read more

The weather cooled but very slowly in May.  The water temperature dropped quite quickly and averaged about 2 degrees C cooler than May 2022. We had a few misty starts on the river and some spectacular sunrises. The swell settled and I managed a few rock fishing sessions at Iluka Bluff, Fraser’s Reef and Woody Head. I landed a few jewfish using the GULP Crazylegs Jerkshad and Squidvicious soft plastic lures, mainly in the nuclear chicken colour. The dangling legs of these patterns often seem to attract a strike when other shapes are not working. Only two of the jewfish/ mulloway that I cau ..read more

March and April are traditionally excellent months for flathead fishing in the Clarence River. In 2022 after the catastrophic floods the fishing had bounced back very quickly and I had caught good numbers of flathead throughout the system. But in 2023, April was less successful than it had been the year before. Perhaps the shift from the La Nina to El Nino weather pattern had something to do with it. There was definitely a little less bait around despite comparatively warm water temperatures. Bait prawn trawling in the Clarence River has been suspended due to an outbreak of white spot disease ..read more

In March 2023, I was able to spend a bit more time fishing the rocky headlands of the Bundjalung National Park at Iluka. The swell came down to around the 1 metre mark on a few days and this meant I could safely fish in very close to the base of the various rock ledges at Woody Head, Frazer’s Reef and Iluka Bluff. I think the jewfish are always around, but when the swell is light you have much more chance of getting a lure in front of them for long enough to entice a strike. I caught plenty of jewfish/mulloway through the month. I was mainly successful around the tide changes, particularly whe ..read more

The weather warmed up and the flathead fishing was excellent in January, 2024. Everyone was catching them over the holidays and cardboard roast turkey, piles of ham and excessive Baileys consumption (more of a desert than a beverage – really) were soon only a faint memory. We had a few storms and the swell stayed up. The northerly wind blew up most afternoons but the fishing was good in the Clarence River, as the water started to warm up. One morning wading in the shallows I came across what I assumed was a dead water dragon, floating in about waist deep water. It was completely rigid when I ..read more

The swell was up and down again in December. I managed a few mornings fishing on the rocky headlands and caught quite a few juvenile jewfish on my favourite GULP Squid Vicious soft plastics. I can pretty much no longer find the lime tiger (green and orange) colour so I have switched to the nuclear chicken (red and green) colour. When the mulloway are hungry they don’t much seem to care which soft plastic you use, but I think the dangling legs of the squid pattern can tempt them out of hiding, when they are reluctant. I also believe the GULP scent makes a difference. There were also a few tail ..read more

I was away for the second half of November and the swell had picked up again meaning that the rocks were largely unfishable. In the first half my son came down to fish with me and he caught his first mulloway on a soft plastic. It could not have been any smaller but he is off the mark! We caught plenty of good flathead and a few bream in the Clarence River, fishing at Browns Rocks. There were lots of very small jewfish hanging about in the holes or next to the drop offs but they only ever seemed to bite before sunrise or after sun set ..read more

The wet winter continued in September with eleven rainy days through the month. The weather was generally a bit warmer than average. Further south, the inland of NSW got a complete drenching which resulted in serious flooding. On the safe swell days I caught plenty of small jewfish from the Iluka headlands. On one morning I managed to put eight in the rock pool,in the space of an hour. However they measured between 60cm and 70cm, so I released them all. Over the next few days I did manage to get a couple of keepers, which were both around 85cm long. I was using my latest favourite jewfish soft ..read more

July had its fair share of windy days but was also a good fishing month. The mulloway/ jewfish were all around the ledges, when I could safely get at them and I caught plenty of keepers. When the swell is up I focus on land-based fishing around Iluka and Yamba. If you have a pair of waders the options are pretty much endless and you can always find a spot to get out of the wind. Fishing with my light rig and a 12lb fluorocarbon leader I caught plenty of decent flathead on soft plastics and small hard bodies. I also caught a few bream and tailor on these lures. The best tailor were caught worki ..read more