Fishing in Yuraygir National Park

Yuraygir stretches along the NSW north coast between Yamba and Coffs Harbour, protecting the state's longest unbroken run of undeveloped coastline.

The park holds a mix of ocean beach, rocky headland, and estuary — surf gutters and rock platforms facing the Tasman, and a series of rivers and creeks pushing out through the coastal scrub behind the dunes.

The Sandon River is the water most anglers know by name here. It sits among the state's most popular fishing spots, and the small hamlet of Sandon on its banks gives some sense of how long people have been working this stretch.

Jewfish and groper are the species called out for the waters off the park in this area, with the rock platforms and offshore ground doing most of that work.

The Wooli Wooli River feeds into the sea near the village of Wooli, which sits on the park's northern edge and gives reasonable access to both the estuary and the beach.

Wooloweyah, Corindi Creek, and the Sandon all drain coastward through or alongside the park, each with its own character depending on the tide and the season.

The park's 65 kilometres of coast means there are surf beaches and headlands spread across a long run of ground, and the fishing shifts accordingly as you move between them.

Campgrounds like Pebbly Beach and Lake Arragan and Red Cliff put anglers close to the water without a long walk. A standard NSW recreational fishing licence applies; check with NSW National Parks for any current park-specific conditions before you go.

This is a park where the fishing is woven into the place rather than the main event — you're as likely to be watching humpbacks from a headland between May and September as you are to be working a gutter. That's not a drawback.

It's just the kind of coast this is.