Fly fishing the NSW North Coast

DPIRD’s local guides split this coast into districts, and following them north is the easiest way to read it. The Wallis Lake district takes in the Manning River and the estuaries of Wallis and Smiths Lake. The Manning’s stocked rainbows and browns are in the upper river above the Gummi Trail crossing; below it the river runs fresh down to Abbotts Falls near Wingham, then tidal.

The Hastings River, in DPIRD’s words, starts high on the Great Dividing Range and runs past Wauchope to the sea at Port Macquarie, about four and a half hours’ drive north of Sydney. The Hastings Fly Fishers write up the Wilson River at Telegraph Point. The Macleay River is tidal below Belgrave Falls at Kempsey and fresh above.

In the Coffs Harbour to Nambucca district, the Bellinger River runs quick and clear down its valley past Thora to Lavenders Bridge in Bellingen, where the tide takes over, and its estuary reaches the coast at Urunga. The Kalang River, the Bellinger’s quieter sister, meets it there.

The Clarence district reaches inland to Baryulgil and Buccarumbi. The Clarence River is the big one, with estuary fish on its list as well as freshwater ones. The Orara River is a small tributary of the Clarence, and the Nymboida River runs into the Mann. At the top, in the Tweed district, Doon Doon Creek runs from the Clarrie Hall Dam wall down to the Tweed River.

On the Hastings, the Macleay, the Bellinger and the rest, the bass method is the same. Be on the water for the last hour of light, cast a popper or a cicada tight to the shade line and fallen timber, and let it sit before you twitch it. When the surface is quiet, a small dark streamer in size 6 to 10 matches the smelt, gudgeons, rainbowfish and blue-eyes these rivers are full of. The upper Bellinger is described as wild bass water with plentiful, powerful fish in fast, clear current, and it asks for wading boots and a willingness to walk between pools. The Wilson adds estuary perch, and good mullet.

The Nymboida is a night river. Fish a bulky surface fly slowly along the edges as the light goes and keep going after dark. Eastern freshwater cod live there with the bass, and at night you often cannot tell which took the fly until it is at your feet.

Catfish are the north’s specialist fly fish. On the Orara, which has no bass on its records, they are the reason to go: a weighted dark Woolly Bugger on a sinking tip, let down to the sand and gravel at the tail of a pool and inched back at dusk. The same fly works on the Clarence after the bass go quiet, and on Doon Doon Creek, where catfish are the fish on record. The Clarence also has oxeye herring, silver and quick to jump, that will chase a small bright fly.

On the salt, the Bellinger estuary from Bellingen to Urunga is said to be extremely productive, with mangrove jack, trevally, jewfish, bream and luderick each using it at different times. Smiths Lake is light-rod water: river garfish just under the surface on a calm, bright morning, taken on a sparse fly stripped fast and high, and wary goldspot mullet for anyone patient with a tiny drab fly.

Pick a warm evening between December and March on the Bellinger or the Macleay. With one day on the Bellinger, fish the bass, not the estuary, and save the Kalang for a second visit.

With a boat and a few days, the Clarence has ramps along it and three different fish to chase. Do not drive to the Nymboida’s headwaters for trout, which are not on its records, and do not come to the Orara expecting bass.

Summer is the heart of it on every bass river, with spring and autumn fishing better under the surface. In winter the fish sit deep and a long drive for a surface bass is wasted.

Big bream are reported schooling on deep coffee-rock reefs in the Clarence in winter.

Seasons, closures, limits, licence requirements and the marine park zoning on Smiths Lake change; check NSW DPIRD’s current freshwater fishing rules and closures before you fish.

A line on the map is not access permission: plan the banks upstream of a ramp with a map and a polite knock on a door. These rivers rise and colour fast after rain, so give them a few days to drop and clear.