Where they’re biting around Ballina
NSW Fishing Monthly editor Tony Zann reports on the local fishing scene (Tony didn’t supply a report last week because, as he says, what can you say about fishing in a cyclone?) …
Bruce at Dave’s Bait Shop says the river is very dirty but quite a few fish have been caught around the sea walls and up to Missingham Bridge on the rising tides.
As the tides get bigger and the floodwater subsides, the river will improve further in coming days and the fish will move back upstream again.
There have been good catches of bream, whiting, flathead and blackfish from the walls on yabbies and beach worms.
But the main action has been the jewfish, Bruce says, with quite a few fish above 20kg caught, with the best a 24.5kg model weighed, gilled and gutted. Hard lures and the bigger soft plastics have been the main destroyers.
Over the past few days a few boats have been able to head offshore with good hauls of pearl perch and sizeable snapper on the 48-fathom reefs and smaller, snapper on The 32. Mackerel remain pretty scarce around Ballina, although there have been reports of some fish filtering down from Byron Bay, where they’ve been pretty thick for a few days. Once the floodwaters stop staining the ocean, they’ll be back.
The beaches north and south of the entrance have had some dart and whiting, with small school jew at night.
(We can add that sharks have been active following the flush-out of the river. One fisherman reported seeing five mako sharks, the largest about 3.6m, or 12 feet, feeding at North Wall on Wednesday.)
