Tarwhine-a-thon at Iluka

[Freeeedom]

Arrived at Iluka about 2.00pm on Thursday 15th. Unloaded the gear into the cabin and headed for the Bluff. Sea was dead flat and fishing the front was easy. Got three nice quality tarwhine in fairly quick time. Have to visit the rellies on Saturday so hope for a few more tomorrow.
Dawn Friday and I'm back at the Bluff. A good catch of tarwhine meant that the rellies will have fresh fish tomorrow, but the conditions are causing some concern. Sea is still dead flat and the water crystal clear. As a result the fish are not cooperating. It was great weather for beach-goers - sunny days around 30 degrees and virtually no wind - but not great for fishermen.
It remained that way for five straight days. Every day I would try a favourite spot for bream (3 locations, 3 legal fish and about twenty unders for the week), flathead (2 sessions in two favourite locations for no touches, no follows and no fish), luderick (3 sessions in three different locations for about 2 downs and no fish) - then it would be back to the Bluff and the tarwhine so that I had something for the day. The quality of the tarwhine was very good at times with a number of fish between 35 and 40cm. I also bagged a few silver trevally and one small snapper (legal in NSW but not in Qld).
I did get one small salmon when trying for bream off the wall. Unfortunately I don't have any rellies down there that I don't like, to give it to. Maybe someone has a cat without a very discerning pallet.
On Tuesday night the wind came in from the north-west at about 30 knots plus. It blew solid all day Wednesday with most locations unfishable. I tried a couple of sheltered locations but hardly caught a legal fish.
It was a great week in many ways with the flat seas meaning that I could fish a number of spots on the Bluff that are impossible to fish in a normal sea, but I would have preferred a bit more wave action some of the time to stir things up a bit. Plenty of wildlife about with whales heading south, dolphins hunting in close to the rocks and putting the fish down for a while each time they pass, turtles sticking their heads up every now and then and the usual hawks, kites and eagles taking cast-off baits or fishing the shallows. One of the fish hawks got more luderick than I did. I never get sick of watching them plummet into the water, flounder around for a minute or so with just their head above water then with a few strong wing beats take to the air again with a decent fish clutched in their talons. They seem to be successful about 30% of their attempts.
Here's a few pics of some of my catches.
Cheers Freeeedom

[carnster]

Cats go ape over salmon they love it.

[stonecold]

Dunno Chris...my cat looks sideways at salmon now.....he started out as your average fish hungry moggy...but since feeding him a salmon a day for the last 3 months he's turned into one of those friken huge Burmese tiger looking cats....I dont think he can handle any more...thankfully I think the bl#*dy salmon are gone

[theoldlegend]

We were down there from the 6th to the 13th Freeedom.

Had a few good sessions up the river at Browns Rocks and managed to land some really good sized bream, but they were far outnumbered by the throwbacks. They must have been hungry too, as they were biting on some old thawed out cooked prawns in addition to the yabbies. We were using the principle that if it looks like it needs to be measured, then back it goes. Caught a couple of undersized jew as well. Nothing would touch the mullet strips though.

Had a strange session at the Bluff one day; three casts out the front for three really good tarwhine, then nothing. We've got a couple of spots at the southern end of the Bluff near where the beach starts, but most of the time the area was unfishable. Had a look at the spot where you get your luderick, but didn't even try, due to the waves coming over the top.

Gave my new 4132 Snyderglas (well, unused anyway) a go at the Bluff, but I reckon I should have got the bloke to make it using a five wrap instead of the four wrap, as it was just a bit light. If I got anything with any size to it, I reckon I would have struggled. Still, it was pretty balanced with a 6" Alvey on it.

Spent two sessions on the wall for no result, so we gave that a miss. Explored up the Esk River for a way one session, and drifted back on the outgoing tide, but only picked up a couple of undersized flatties, but there's some interesting looking water up there.

All in all, a satisfying but tiring eight days.

Good to see you went OK.


TOL

[Freeeedom]

Cheers TOL

When fishing the Bluff in the morning the tarwhine seemed to go off once the sunlight got quite bright - usually by 7.30 or 8 o'clock. I was going out at first light - about 5.30 and fishing until the bite tailed off. Numbers wise I did far better in the afternoons, fishing from about 3.00 until dark.
Here's a couple of pics my daughter took of the terrible conditions I had to endure to get a fish. I was actually standing in the cunjevoi zone and did not get any water in my boots. Never seen it so calm before
Cheers Freeeedom

[Mullet Musketeer]

Freedom - I have been down the road at Brooms Head and my catches were similair to yours. The water was amazingly clear and , like you I got to some spots in the calmer weather that would normally be out of bounds. I had one amazing session with a massive school of Bonito - I will post a more detailed report when I am back, in a few days.

[mattooty]

Mullet, were there any size in the bonnies? I spent the weekend at my old stomping grounds at Yamba and managed a handful of bonnies but couldn't find anything over half a kilo. There's some serious bait schools flicking about and great water. I think I'll be getting the LBG gear out sooner rather than later.

[malby]

Been meaning to post some pics of our last 2 trips down to Iluka.

The Jewie was caught in June this year fishing the estuary and the others were caught fishing the rocks from the 9th to 16th of September.

Sam's bream was just a shade under 40cm and we caught several good ones in that session just on mullet flesh.;)

Most of our last trip in September was pretty dead apart from some Salmon that kept us interested but I had one corker session from the rocks where I caught 7 trevors and 1 Salmon all on a 40 Halco Twisty lure. The Trev's were all around 1.5-2.5kg and fought awesomely! It was my best session in ages and really blew the cobwebs away.;D

We love Iluka but this years trip was a real dud. Maybe it was the time of year. No tailor at all and very few people bringing anything home much apart from Snapper outside for those who could get out through the monster swells.:( Worst of all we could barely nail a Flattie on lures or anything!! What the!! Iluka the Flattie mecka normally???? Couldn't work it out??

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[Freeeedom]

Yeah Malby - everywhere was VERY quiet last week, except the tarwhine off the Bluff. Even fishing a couple of top bream spots off the Bluff didn't produce any fish. September can be a bit like that - a bit in-between seasons but I was hoping to be able to reach a few schools of pelagics from the rocks in the calm weather but never sighted any within half a kilometre of the headland - just a couple of groups of birds feeding way out to sea.

MM - I went for a drive down to Broom and the Sandon one day while I was there, during the middle of the day when I didn't want to fish. In the very calm seas the reef areas below the Broom Headland looked very interesting as did some of the little beaches away to the south of the headland itself.

I know the area where you busted your rod - I used to swim in the lagoon when I lived in Maclean in the 50's and a day at the beach often meant a day at Broom. How long do you think you could fish it across the bottom of the tide before the rising tide pushed you off it?

I'm tempted to spend a week at Broom one time soon instead of Iluka but I think it would be a difficult place to fish in heavy weather. At least I know spots at Iluka that produce the goods for me when the seas are big.

The Sandon River looks like an ideal canoe or kayak location to me. I think you could spend a very relaxing day exploring that river with a little spin rod and a nice mix of SP's and small hard bodies, but catching luderick in water that clean would be a real challenge (for an amateur like me anyway).

Cheers Freeeedom