Afternoon Mackerel

Hi,
Well today (9th April) John, Keith and myself wandered down a bush covered track to a rock ledge to try our luck with some Spanish Mackerel as recent reports had been promising.

Setting up our gear for a longish afternoon session I threw out a yakka under a balloon, which hung around for about 30 minutes before giving up the ghost and dying.

We decided on focusing on catching some live garfish which were circling below the ledge, so John and I got a few on sabiki jigs which were quickly floated out under balloons and floats.

Johns bait was taken twice before he eventually hooked up to what seemed a large mackerel, but after is long initial run it had worked its way loose and freed itself.

Another gar later and John was on again to a mackerel which didnt drop off and after a tenuous pre-gaff moment I drove the gaff into it and hauled up a Spanish Mackerel of 19.5kg, a great fish and my first look at a mackerel in person.

Dispatching the fish, we hurriedly went about catching more gar and floating them out past the washes.

Keith hooked and lost 2 good fish with his livies, one fish came off due to the wire trace slipping through the gap in the eye of the hook!

At about 4pm I was sitting down watching a far off ship go past when my reel starts screaming, so I stood up pushing the drag lever to strike and held on.

20 minutes of chasing the fish around the rocks, John had gaffed my fish which turned out to be my first Spanish Mackerel of 12.9kg, I was stoked!

Hauling that fish up the rocks for some photos, we decided to make our way back as the sun was steadily disappearing over the horizon.

So packing up our gear and slinging our fish over our shoulders we made our way back through the twilight bush.

Thanks for reading and more photos will be added when I get them from people.


John and I with our Spaniards

Success at Clarrie Hall

Hello,
Its been a while since my last post but here we go...

Please note that all measurements are fork length and time is in NSW, because the dam is in NSW and Im from NSW and thats how we roll.

Launching at the stroke of 5:30am I headed off to an area I had prefished the week before, so heading up there I worked a walk-the-dog lure around the lillies and after a few swirls I hooked and landed my first fish and first walk-the-dog fish. Further along another fish on the Jaz Zapper, so they DO work!
:snic: By the way I think these lures have a better action than the 3x more expensive Sammy's.

Changing to a shallow diving Atomic Hardz Crank I hooked and landed my biggest fish of 37cm, after that a miriad of fish came aboard the yak with 12 from my areas.

After the sun had well and truly risen above the sky (about 11am) I headed downstream past the launching areas catching up with a few guys who were still out. Deciding to explore the Eastern side of the Dam I peddaled down the tiny inlets and bays but now luck catching any fish.

After encircling Snake Island I found a tiny inlet that was just big enough for my yak to sneak into (after running into about 4 submerged standing trees) and the same lure found its way into two small bass about 20-22cm on two casts.

About this time it was 1pm NSW so I decided to head back for a rest at the campsite but had it on the way under the shade of an over hanging eucalypt. I landed at the boat ramp and shared advice and reports with the other guys who were there.

Had a bit of lunch and headed out to stuff on the bank around opposite the boat ramp, no fish for the arvo session and packed up at 6pm NSW and pulled the yak up in time for some cow on a burger.

At the end of day 1 I had landed 14 fish (12 on the card because 2 flipped out as I was measuring them.

Day 2>>
Again launched at 5:30am and headed to the same area as I did the day before, but this time hung around in the lillies for longer. I used every type of surface lure I had; Jitterbugs, bloopers, walkers and finally I put the Jaz Zapper on again and first cast, BAM! hooked up to a feisty fish of 34.5cm came aboard.

After this one fish, no strikes, swirls or any fish.

I turned around and headed back to the big inlet near the launch area with the pine trees and jigged some lures like MF40/50's, chatterbaits, lipless crankbaits, plastics over a large tree which had a few large fish schooled around it, but I couldnt tempt them so at 10:30am I called it a day.

With the presentation precedings over, most people headed off to their respective locations of residence, me on the other hand went for a looksy at some of the creeks I drove over on the way there and had a fish too but didnt get anything except a list for more lures after I dropped my favourite one in 2foot long grass.

Thanks to Leigh for organising such a great event, the sponsors for providing prizes, etc. and the ABA for their great cooking skills and being there to help Leigh organise and run the event so smoothly.

The results (NAME/SCORE):

Mark Fraser 1803
Pete Bostock 1790 (Biggest Bass Winner = 41cm FL, and only 13mm behind Mark)
James Melville 1710
Josh Carter 1684
Graeme Bowes 1670
Trent Hassall 1620
Tristan Mace 1615
Mathew Kirkpatrick 1598
Brad Lambert 1520
Adrian Ryan 1520
Graeme Whitehouse 1520
Andrew Bullen 1345
Mel Parker 1300
Paul De Odorico 1255
Roberta Pearce 1245
Geoff Gudgeon 1215
Geoff Fullarton 1140
Alex Bennett 1020
Ray Sweeney 1010
John Carroll 980
Daniel Darcy 971
Sel McLennan 970
Ken Ferguson 890
Barry Trapp 830 (Winner of the Viking Tempo Fisherman Kayak)
Nick Contojohn 760
David Doherty 760
Dawn Semple 540
Cameron Alexander 530
Andrew Kennedy 380
Glen Kennedy 350
Josh Culnane 342
Stephen Cousins 310
Bill Mitchell 280
Rod Vardy 275
Alan Britcliffe 0
Ray Kennedy 0

Pedalling out onto a wind rippled dam surface of Clarrie Hall (Dam) I rigged my rods and organised my lures into a more comfortable setup. The slight breeze had kept the surface moving, so the plan was to fish the lily-pad edges of the secluded bays and inlets that dot the edge of the dam.

In the first bay I landed my first fish of 31.2cm on a black Arbogast Jitterbug retrieved along the edge of the lilies.



Working my way along the edge of the dam, something was busting up tailor style about 50m from the bank. The action of the mystery fish had caught my attention so I quickly rigged up a 3in Smelt shad soft plastic on a Betts jighead and cast out and over the fish swirls/surface strikes. Allowing the lure to sink about 2 feet I slowly retrieved it and came up tight with a very agro fish who upon hook-up steamed over to the nearby lily pads. Pulling it away and onboard it went 31.5cm, a very healthy fish.



One thing that surprised me while fishing Clarrie Hall was how frequently and how loud the surface strikes of feeding bass where as they smacked the insects from off the tops of the lilies. With such surface action happening around me I broke out the walkers and tried my hand at fishing a style of lure I don’t often use. No strikes or fish from these, so I chose a shallow diving Atomic Hardz Crank in Silver Shad (my current go-to lure).

First cast under an overhanging tree and I was on with a 28cm fish for the camera.



By now the breeze had eased off and the dam surface became glassy, the view to the north towards Mt Warning was very scenic, something that Clarrie Hall is well known for. With extensive lily pad banks, weed piles and even sections of standing timber Clarrie Hall has defiantly hooked me and I will be coming back, even just for a paddle.





Second cast a bit further along in an inlet and another fish but only about 20cm.



One of the biggest inlets I explored went for a far way into the hillside and I only came to a halt when the creek had become clogged by an immense amount of leaf litter (the sounder was showing a creek bed depth of 4m+.



It was about now that I realised that time was getting on and I had better start to turn around and head back to the launch site.

Along the way I picked up another 20cm fish that followed the lure all the way across the inlet and finally ate it, giving me something to do in the stifling heat. The temperature out on the dam was probably around 38°C, something I didn’t want to stay out all day for, so at around noon I tucked into some pre-made sandwiches and headed ‘home’ trolling a deep diving lure.

Secret Creek Bass

Hello,
Today I went out to a little known spot that large bass (50cm+) can be casually swimming in amongst swimmers for a fish to see if they reacted to fishing tactics.
Well first cast I hooked and landed this feisty little (16cm) bugger


The little tacker

I moved downstream to a larger pool because some 'considerate' kid came down and started swimming right there where I was and started throwing large rocks around.

The second cast I noticed a large tail fin idle past my lure, so I immediately threw the lure out again and the fish followed it once more, so I slowly twitched it in. Each time I twitched the bass became more interested. So another 3 casts and I resolved to dead slow retrieve which was nailed by a large fish.

A long fight ensued over rocks and through narrow gaps in the rocks, but I had the fish subdued. As I traced the fish to haul it up on the bank the leader broke at the leader-lure knot and I immediately grabbed the fish by the mouth as it still had my lure in its gob.



So I got the lure out and showed the nearby American tourists what a proper bass looks like, a few photos and away she went.



Measured to the marked spot on my rod, she went 43.5cm exactly what my original PB was!


The best lures I have used (the bottom one was the lure for this report)

Flathead in the morning, Bass in the afternoon

Hello,
Yesterday at 7:30am my mate Vincent and I launched his electric outboard powered canoe into Mobs Bay and began the pottering trip around the Bay. We casted our lures, both soft plastics and hard bodies to the edges of the mangroves, in hope of catching some bream and flathead.

After several missed fish, we had each landed 3 flathead to 40cm and Vincent several small tailor, we decided to pack up and we were off the water by 2pm.







Getting the rods and lure boxes organised for an afternoon bass session, Dad and I made our way down to Tintenbar to fish from the banks.

The first spot we went to didn’t produce any fish or strikes so we decided to move to the other side of the bank, but further downstream at the end of Crosby’s Lane.

After changing from a jitterbug to the ever productive Atomic Hardz shad, on which I landed a small 26cm bass which had some severe caudal and pectoral fin damage. On the 3rd cast I hooked up to a fish that fought fairly well and I hauled it up on the bank for a measure and photo, going 33cm and extremely well conditioned.





So flathead in the morning and bass in the afternoon, what a great day!

The Clarence Gorge

Heavy raindrops collected in the hollows of the granite and began to cascade over the polished surface as I clambered over the boulders, trying to escape the impending lightning strikes that were falling some half a kilometre away. The storm had started to move on and I kept moving upstream fishing the current eddies and boulders that make up the infamous character of The Clarence Gorge.

The weekend started on Friday 11:30am when a small group of blokes in 4WD’s headed off on the journey to the property where we would be camping for the next three days. We arrived at the campsite some 3hrs later, and began the process of setting up camp. In this first group were Brian and his son Nick; John; and Dad (my Dad) and myself.


Entry to the Gorge Property


The river on the way into the Gorge

Rigging up the kayak I made my way upstream to explore the river and to try and reach the actual Gorge. This was an easy pedal of about 40min to reach the steep granite cliffs of the Gorge and its first series of small rapids. This little jaunt rendered no fish but some huge surface smashes which didn’t result in any hook-ups.

There were hundreds of turtles in the river and they weren’t afraid of us paddling past. There were also plenty of eagles and hawks.





I left the Gorge in the darkness and made my way downstream under the moon of a smoke screened moon, to arrive to a dinner of steak and sausages.

Saturday
Arising at the magical time of 5am I organised my kayak and gear for a full day of fishing which was supposed to begin at 8am, but I was delayed after the arrival of my uncle Terry.

Meanwhile John and Dad had left early to walk up to the Gorge along the river bank, on their return they practically fell over in exhaustion as the 40°C+ heat and kilometres of rocks radiating trapped heat had taken its toll on them, apparently causing the 1.5km walk to become like 10km. Though making the walk worth the effort, Dad had landed a 52cm to the fork bass on a black Arbogast Jitterbug above the first waterfall.

Eventually I left after John and Dad’s tale and went for another journey up to the Gorge, but I was clever and took the shorter (and much cooler) route by kayak. I was able to drag my kayak up onto a gravel bay and anchor it with my paddle, as I donned a pack and began the short walk to the falls. I was surprised that even during the middle of the day I was able to draw surface strikes, which still didn’t hook-up; very frustrating. Near the falls I found a souvenir from a certain creature I didn’t need to encounter this far away from help. The skin from an Eastern Brown snake was as more than longer to my fishing rod which is 2.1m long.



When reaching the falls I was greeted by a cloud of cooling spray of water, this brought instant relief as the rocks were so hot my rubber soled water shoes were starting to melt. At the bottom of the falls were hundreds of fork-tailed catfish either trying to climb the waterfall or feeding on algae, most of these fish were about 60cm long and well conditioned.



About four hours of hammering this short (200m) section of river I decided to escape the constant heat and returned to the campsite, to be greeted by Craig who had just arrived bringing along his daughter for her first camping trip.

With only 3 kayaks brought along, I had booked two hire canoes from the owners for the craft-less guys to use. So in that afternoon we decided to head up to the Gorge and allow the people who hadn’t visited it yet to have a look around and a fish along the way.

We went as far upstream as the first set of rapids impassable to all but Dad and John in one of the canoes. Brian attempted to climb it and was close to succeeding but was sucked under and over the yak went. I tried all of the possible routes through the rapids but wasn’t able to climb the 2ft drop. Portaging this rapid was not an option as it was created by large boulders trapped between extremely narrow and deep (12m) section of river.


The Gorge walls

As the sun began to slowly set behind the ranges, a storm that had been brewing all day finally let loose with heavy rain drops and lightning striking the mountains above us. Everyone decided to make the way back to camp, but I decided to stay behind and have another fish the waterfall one last time from the land.

I fished my way up to the waterfall for no fish and made my way back to the parked yak. I then made my way hiding along the cliff walls and keeping my rod low, as lighting continued to strike the nearby mountains and rock pillars.

Meeting up with John and Dad who were still fishing some way downstream of the Gorge, they had caught numerous freshwater herring and catfish on crickets. So I changed tactics and threw out a cricket on a small jighead and got a bass of 18cm instantly.



Returning to camp we were met with a trashed camp, as the wind had blown down our tent (first time ever) and some tarps. Seeing the tent was full of some water (all of my sleeping stuff was dry, yets Dad’s soaking wet. Haha there must be karma!) and the previous night Dad had kept me awake with his snoring, I decided to sleep in the tray of our Ute. A good night sleep was assured.

Sunday
Waking up after a solid sleep I had a quick fish around a drowned tree opposite camp resulted in 2 small bass about 20cm long on live crickets. The boats hooning past began to become annoying so I began the pedal upstream to the Gorge to try and meet up with Terry and Dad who left earlier this morning to try and reach the waterfalls, in the two canoes. Only meeting them about halfway we casted, trolled various lures with no result. The only fish caught during this session were caught using live crickets.

Eventually we made our minds up to go back to camp and have a late breakfast of bacon, eggs, hash browns and sausages. We feed like kings when we go camping!

Overall, I was pleased with the weekend but not particularly so with the fishing. Neil commented that this was a very slow November and that the best time of year to come for the fishing is September with an average of more than 1000 fish caught in that month. So next September we will be there again!

Thanks to Neil, Sue and Warren for running such a great place and we will be back for sure!

First Amberjack at Woody Head, Iluka

At 3:45am on Monday 16^th November I jumped in the car and made the 1hr long drive to Woody Head, Iluka to meet up with Sydney based kayak fisho “Avayak” or better known as Gary who was holidaying in nearby Yamba.



The plan was to try and help Gary catch a Cobia or maybe a snapper, so we headed out to the front of the headland and tried to find some yakka (yellowtail)/slimey (slimey mackerel) schools, so we could get us some livebaits.

On the way out to the headland, a pod of small Mack Tuna started to bust up next to me as I fumbled around for my camera in the hull. As luck would have it my rod wasn’t rigged up and by the time I had it rigged the school had moved about 600m North, regrettably I left them to catch up with Gary who had started to jig around a large school or what turned out to be a mix of yakkas and slimies.

After gathering a few baits, we rigged them for trolling and we set off in search of some reef to send down some plastics too.After about 6kms of reef searching we headed back into the shore around the base of the headland where there was more baitfish activity.



I rigged my new Team Daiwa Tierra rod up with a 3in plastic and started to cast it into the wash of the headland, this resulted in several strikes and hookups but each time the fish spat the hook.

Moving into a whitewashed alcove in the rocks, my plastic was bricked by something big, taking line at a fast pace while I tried to palm the spool of my little 2000 size reel to drag whatever it was I had hooked out of the rocks. After a while some colour appeared and there was what I thought were a school of salmon chasing my hooked fish (I also thought this was a salmon) and several other fish flipped out of the way of the net just in time as I netted my fish.

It was at this time I had landed a kingfish! Woo I yelled out and Gary made his way over to me. After a measure and photo I let the little bruiser go back to his mates who could be seen 6m below in the clear, blue water.



We fished this spot for about another 30minutes before we decided to move along the headland North, where we didn’t catch anything else but amused looks from some spectators on the shore, especially when I jumped out of my kayak to land into “2ft of water” which ended up being 6ft of water!

Later on whilst packing away our gear, Gary helped me identify the fish as an Amberjack not the Kingfish I thought it was, as it had sort of a keel on the tail wrist; something a Kingfish does not have and a stubbier nose.

Thankyou to Gary for putting up with me for the day and I’m sorry we didn’t catch many fish (besides the endless numbers of those yellow bait fish) and I hope it was better fishing for you during your holiday in the Northern Rivers.