Clarence river, Maclean-Yamba

Author: josh

Category: Trip Reports

Created on Monday, 14 March 2011 19:02

Written by Josh

With seas predicted to be creeping fairly high I decided to plan a weekend's worth of kayak fishing and exploring around the Clarence river instead of my usual off-shore ritual. To that end I spent a good 5 hours pedalling my yak around in mono-hull vanilla mode, casting lures at all the usual suspect areas and not coming up with a whole lot to show for it. With a flathead-centric approach, I cast almost everything I'd seen work in these spots before, yet all I caught were a couple of small bream. I did, however, manage to put in some considerable distance on the water, doing 3 large laps around the entire Clarence/south arm juncture with numerous side ventures in between, ultimately wracking up 17 km, a lot of that against the current. 

Not at all enthused about Sunday prospects around the Maclean area, I ignored all the best advice in the world (which was: go to Browns Rocks) and decided to head to yamba to do some recon; exploration for the up-coming ABT Daiwa/Hobie kayak series Clarence round in May. My plan was to fish hard for flathead, but keep a close eye out for bream hotspots. I know how counter-productive that sounds (and it was) but I wanted flatty for dinner. I did indeed catch a few more bream - none of them tournament winners - but I did not catch my precious flatty. I certainly hooked one (Storm Curltail plastic), but dropped it yakside. It was one of numerous fish I dropped that day, but the only one I was sure was a flathead. 

I'm going to refer to the one spot where I hooked the most fish 'Spot X', which just so happens to be the very same place I have hooked most other fish when kayak fishing the Yamba/Iluka stretch of the Clarence. Fear not though die-hard ABT breamers - yes, some of those fish were bream, but most were trevally. Yesterday's hook up resulting in a bust off on rocks... which I suppose gives you some clue where I hooked it. I hooked a few tailor as well, one boated, one escapee, both still swimming alive and well.

I hit the water with my AI configured as an outrigger on Sunday, with a single pontoon fitted (plus tramp) for maximum stability and camera angles. I traversed almost as much distance as the day before, working hard against wind and current for most of the time. The highlight of the day was a quick visit from a pod of dolphins, popping up for a quick hello that I was fortunate enough to get a pretty good video angle, so look for that in YCKFS episode 4, which is now in development.