Fishing in Yalgorup National Park

Yalgorup National Park sits on a narrow coastal strip about 30 minutes south of Mandurah, running a chain of 10 lakes between the Indian Ocean and the inland plain.

The name comes from Nyoongar words meaning "place of swamp or lake," and the landscape lives up to it — paperbark swamps, tuart woodlands, and a series of shallow lakes that stretch the length of the park, with Lake Clifton and Lake Preston the largest of them.

There is no fishing in Yalgorup National Park. Parks WA is explicit: the lakes are closed to fishing, boating, canoeing, kayaking, and swimming.

The lakeshore environment is fragile, and the park's most significant feature — living thrombolite formations at the edge of Lake Clifton — depends on that protection.

These are among the few surviving colonies of their kind in Western Australia, and the park is managed accordingly. If you're in the area and want to fish, Preston Beach sits just outside the park's southern boundary, where the Indian Ocean meets the dunes.

That stretch of coast has a local reputation for Australian salmon running through in autumn, mulloway in the deeper gutters after dark, tailor on metals, and school whiting in summer.

Beach access is available by 4WD with deflated tyres from the main car park. The park boundary runs along the dune line — stay on the ocean side. Yalgorup's lakes are worth seeing. They're just not worth rigging up for.