The Clyde is a south coast river worth the drive for one reason: wild Australian bass that come up to a surface fly in the half-light.
Think of it as two rivers in one. The upper reaches are fresh water, and that is where the bass live. Lower down the river turns salty, and the fishing changes over to estuary species.
Start in the fresh upper reaches in summer, for bass on the surface. The writer of one practitioner fly-fishing blog treats this water as a bass day trip, and plans the drive to arrive before dawn for the morning surface bite. That is the trip we would suggest too: be on the water in the dark, fish a popper or a big dry along the shaded edges until the sun is on the water, then switch to a small streamer in the pools. No water-specific rule was found, so read the current NSW guide before you go.
The second trip is the lower river, launched from one of the public boat ramps on the access card. It is estuary fishing, a different game from the bass water; read what the NSW guide says for salt water before you launch. Go once you know the upper river, not instead of it.
Check the current NSW fishing guide, then plan to be at the water before first light.
Water and habitat
The Clyde runs from fresh upper reaches down into a saltier lower river, and that split decides where you fish. The bass water is the fresh part: pools, runs and the edges under the bank vegetation where a fish can sit in shade and wait for something to drop in or swim past.
In our experience coastal bass hold tight to cover. Look for fallen timber, undercut banks and overhanging trees, and the deeper, slower water at the tail of a run. In the middle of the day they drop back into shade and depth; at first and last light they move up onto the edges and into the shallows to feed.
The river's flow chart shows how often it runs high and low, and the conditions section carries whatever the gauges report. Bass fishing on a coastal river is usually best on a steady, clear flow, so use those before you commit to the trip.
Fish and forage
Australian bass are the fish you drive for, and the fish records for the river confirm them. Longfin eels and bullrout are recorded in the river too.
What matters for a fly box is the small fish. The records include Australian smelt, common galaxias, Pacific blue-eyes and several gudgeons (Cox's, empire, striped and flathead gudgeons among them), with a few gobies in the lower water. That is a river full of small, slim baitfish, and a bass here is used to eating them.
So carry two kinds of fly. For the surface, a popper, a gurgler-style foam fly and a hopper cover the dawn and dusk bite. For the rest of the day, in our experience a sparse baitfish pattern around 4 to 6 centimetres in olive, grey or tan, and a small dark Woolly Bugger for the deeper pools.
If a bullrout comes up on the fly, unhook it with pliers in the water rather than handling it.
When to fish it
As a guide's read, the Clyde is a warm-month bass river. From late spring through summer bass feed hardest on the surface, and the edges of the day carry most of the fishing. The pre-dawn start that the practitioner blog describes is the one to copy.
Through midsummer, terrestrials off the banks can bring fish up under trees in daylight too. As the water cools into autumn, fish slow down and sit deeper; a streamer fished slowly through the pools is the better bet then. In winter we would leave the upper river alone and come back in spring.
How to fish it
Arrive in the dark and be rigged before you can see the water. As a guide's read, a 6 or 7 weight rod with a floating line handles a popper and a small streamer, and a tippet of around 10 to 12 pound gives you a chance of turning a fish away from the timber.
Cast tight to the bank, under the branches if you can, let the fly sit, then give it a short pop and pause. Most takes come on the pause. Work along the edge rather than out into the middle, and move on if a stretch of bank gives you nothing after a few casts.
Once the sun is on the water, change to the streamer and fish the shaded, deeper water with a slow strip and plenty of pauses. When a bass takes near timber, keep the rod low and pull it away from cover straight away.
Access and safety
The access card shows the public boat ramps. They are places to launch a boat, kayak or canoe, not permission to cross land beside the river, so treat any other bank as private until you know otherwise.
A small craft is often the easiest way to reach bass water on a coastal river, and fishing at dawn means launching and paddling in poor light. Carry a light and a lifejacket, and tell someone where you are going.
As on any coastal river, a heavy fall of rain upstream can lift and colour the water quickly. If it is rising, stay off it.
Regulations
No water-specific rule was found for the Clyde. Read the current NSW Department of Primary Industries and Regional Development fishing guide before you fish, and read the part of it that covers the water you are on, fresh or salt.
Before you go, read the current NSW fishing rules and regulations, the freshwater bag and size limits and the general freshwater closures, and confirm the fishing fee.
