# Esk River / Iluka



## TideRunner (Aug 9, 2007)

Just back from a couple of weeks up the Northern NSW coast.
While staying at Iluka I discovered the Esk River, a tributary of the Clarence. A magnificent yak fishing river if you are into bream, flathead and bass fishing. Can't be accessed by power boats unless they are prepared to come up from the mouth, some 20 to 30 minutes away. Access for a yak is via a tiny stream beside the Esk River bridge on the Iluka Rd. 
The Esk is some 20m wide and flows quietly, so is easy to paddle. Still tidal even this far up. Flows through dense rain forest, absolutely beautiful. Plenty of snags and overhangs to cast to. While bream and flathead are accessable both upstream and downstream from the bridge, to get into the bass country requires a fair effort upstream.
Well worth putting aside a day to explore if you are in the area. Make sure that you are comfortably set up, as it is almost impossible to get out of the yak due to the dense vegetation and deep water along the bank. I did 2 day trips in there without seeing another angler.

Bob


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## saysme (Apr 29, 2007)

Hide TideRunner
Sounds like my type of fishing, little far to go unfortunately  How were your catches?


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## RedPhoenix (Jun 13, 2006)

Unfortunately, due to the change in ownership of this web site and the lack of response by the owners to my requests to remove my email address from all administrative-level notifications and functionality, I have decided to remove my posts on AKFF. Thank you for the great times, the fantastic learning experiences and the many many fish. If you are desperate for the old content of this particular post, it is available below base64 encoded and bzip2 compressed.

Red.

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## mangajack (Jul 23, 2007)

I've often driven over the bridge there and thought i gotta get in there one day. What was the deepest hole you came across in the Esk?

I'm thinking it would probably support some nice sized jew in there and looks a lot less touched than the Illuka and yamba stretches nearby.

Jack.


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## chrissy (Jul 7, 2007)

Always been meaning to fish the esk, will do it in the next few months.


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## TideRunner (Aug 9, 2007)

The river depth ranged between 7' and 12'. There were odd gutters under banks that dropped to 16'. Bound to be deeper holes if you spent time checking out the bends.

There had been a lot of fresh water down after the the heavy rain and nobody was doing all that well, myself included. I took a couple of bream at 800 grams, a number of just size and undersize bream which I released, plus a two flathead around 35cm for the table.

Also nearly ran down a snake swimming across the river, watched a goanna climb the bank and had a Sea Eagle for company for a few bends. Not hard to take.

Bob


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## jimmybob (Aug 10, 2007)

sounds great....any pics ?


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## Dodge (Oct 12, 2005)

Bob ever since owning the yak I've figured that would be a good waterway to try as it goes well up into grasslands in the guts of Bunjalung NP and would have to be home to EPs I feel as well as bass.

Any time I've crossed the Iluka Rd bridge in the past I heard it calling me :wink: and wished I had the means to access

Thanks for the reminder of its existence


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