The Orara is a small coastal river in northern NSW that feeds the Clarence, and the reason to fish it with a fly rod is a native catfish. In our experience few anglers chase them on a fly, and a weighted fly crawled across the bottom on a warm evening is a good bet.
Think of it as a single river that ends in the Clarence rather than a set of separate fisheries. What changes along it is the slope: the gradient chart shows where it runs steep and where it flattens, and the flatter, slower water is where you want to be, because catfish feed along the bottom of pools rather than in fast broken water.
The first trip is catfish from the access site the card names. Freshwater catfish are recorded here with confidence, and summer is our pick for them, in the last hour of light and into the dusk. Fish a dark Woolly Bugger on a sinking tip, let it reach the bottom, and inch it back. Read the current NSW guide, including its closed-waters list, before your first cast.
The second trip is for cod, and it starts with reading rather than casting. A NSW Recreational Fishing Trusts report describes the river as home to the eastern freshwater cod, in writing up a local Rivercare group's work to stabilise significant bank erosion along it. Look up what the current NSW guide says about cod in the Clarence catchment before you target one, and if the answer leaves any doubt, fish for catfish and leave the cod alone.
Do not come expecting bass. They are the fish most people link with coastal NSW rivers, but they are not among the fish recorded in the Orara. Come for the catfish, keep an eye out for sea mullet and freshwater herring, and treat anything else as a surprise.
Pack a sinking tip and a handful of dark, weighted flies, check the current NSW guide, and plan to be on the water as the light goes.
Water and habitat
The Orara is a tributary of the Clarence. The gradient profile shows where the bed steepens and where it lays back; on the flatter stretches, look for longer pools with a soft or gravelly floor, which is the ground catfish like to feed over. Look for the tail of a pool where the bottom comes up to meet a run, and for the edge of a gravel bar where it drops into deeper water.
Erosion is part of this river's story. A local Rivercare group took on stabilising significant bank erosion along it, so expect the edges to be raw in places. Undercut banks and fallen timber are also where a cod would sit, and the bank cover chart gives you a sense of how much of the river is shaded and treed. Shade and timber in a coastal river usually mean fish.
The flow chart shows how the river behaves across the year. Coastal rivers in general run coloured after heavy rain; catfish feed by feel and smell and will often still take a fly in a little colour, but high, brown water is one to leave.
Fish and forage
Freshwater catfish are the fish to plan around. They are bottom feeders, and in our experience they eat shrimp, snails, yabbies and insect larvae from the sand and gravel far more than anything swimming past them. That makes the fly a slow, heavy thing that stays on the bottom.
The cod is a fish to read up on before you fish for it. Freshwater herring and sea mullet are also recorded here. Mullet are grazers and rarely take a fly with any conviction; herring are small and will sometimes chase a tiny fly.
Underneath all of that is a long list of small natives recorded here: several kinds of gudgeon, Australian smelt, crimson-spotted and ornate rainbowfish, Pacific blue-eyes and Agassiz's glassfish. These are the forage. A slim streamer in the size and colour of a smelt or a gudgeon is the closest thing the river has to a universal fly.
Carry dark Woolly Buggers in 6 to 10, weighted, for catfish; a few small olive or grey baitfish patterns in 10 to 12 for the pools; and a couple of tiny flies for herring if you see them dimpling.
When to fish it
Summer is our pick. From November through March the water is warm, catfish are at their most active, and the best of it is often the last hour of daylight and the first hour of dark. Spring can be good as the water warms. Winter is slow for catfish in a coastal river, and we would not drive up for it.
Watch the rain. After a big coastal downpour a river like this can run high and brown for days, and the live conditions card is the place to check the level before you leave. Give it time to drop and clear a little, then go.
How to fish it
A five- or six-weight with a sinking tip or an intermediate line handles everything here. Use a short, stout leader, because catfish are not leader shy and the bottom will cost you flies.
Cast across and slightly upstream into the slower water, let the fly sink until you feel it tick the bottom, and bring it back in short, slow pulls with long pauses. A catfish take is usually a slow weight rather than a snap; lift into it steadily. Fish the tails of pools and the drop-offs off gravel bars, and fish them twice, because a catfish that has not found the fly on the first pass often finds it on the second.
For the small-baitfish streamer, work the edges of timber and shaded banks with a slow strip. Where trees crowd the bank, a roll cast saves flies.
Access and safety
The access card names the place to start. It describes where the river can be reached; it is not permission to walk the banks beyond it. Assume the banks beyond it are private, ask at the house before you cross a paddock, and leave every gate as you found it.
As on any coastal river fished at dusk, carry a head torch, learn the bank in daylight before you fish it in the dark, and expect snakes in the grass through the warm months. Eroded banks can give way underfoot; stay back from a raw edge and get into the water where the bank slopes. Check, clean and dry your boots and gear before you fish another river.
Regulations
Check the current NSW guide and its closed-waters list for the Orara River. Check the current NSW Department of Primary Industries and Regional Development guide before you fish, including anything it says about cod in the Clarence catchment and the bag and size limits for the fish you plan to keep.
Before you leave, open the current NSW fishing rules and regulations, confirm the fishing fee and exemptions and check the freshwater bag and size limits.
