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We all know no one can sleep properly the night before cod opening. And, what a cod opening it promises to be too!
The little bit of rain predicted for this weekend will only freshen things up and as long as the heavens don’t open up completely a day or two before Friday, conditions should be nigh perfect in just about every cod fishing area you can think of.
While a couple of rivers may be running a tad higher than you’d consider perfect, they’re all clear and should fish really well. From what we’re hearing from around the traps there are quite a few yellow belly fishermen that have been pestered by cod in just about every river, creek, and lake you’d care to mention so things definitely look very promising.
I didn’t think I’d ever say this but that includes Lake Hume.
I haven’t been out much but I even nailed a small cod in the Hume while chasing a feed of reddies for an hour or so last Sunday evening and have been hearing consistent reports from Hume, regarding cod, for the last month or so.
It’s fantastic that we’ve been able to say every year, for the past 10 years or so, that Lake Hume is improving as a cod fishery.
It’s nearly got to the point where you could seriously consider it as a destination for the opening weekend.
It’s great to see the continuing stocking done by fisheries and angling clubs paying dividends.
It’s a work in progress but look at the results so far.
I hope we can be talking along the same theme again next year with even greater improvements and bigger fish.
At Dartmouth, the TBS Marine Dart Women’s Fishing Classic is done and dusted for another year.
The weather wasn’t particularly helpful on Saturday arvo, with the heavens opening up but Friday and Sunday were good.
Plenty of fish showed up, with trolling being the best way to get onto them.
In the catch/release section, Mandy Gay was champion angler and she also teamed up with daughter Teagan to win the catch/release pairs.
Good move by Teagan to join forces with mum, she’s won the pairs nine years out of 10.
Delwin Nielson cleaned up the champion angler open section with the biggest fish of the competition helping her along – a 1.5 kilogram brown!
The boat was won by the “Holey Mackerel” team for the second time in three years.
The streams also copped a bit of rain on Saturday making a few of them difficult to play in but lots of fishos still managed to find somewhere to have a crack with most doing pretty well.
It’s great to see the trout are well and truly back after that disastrous couple of seasons a couple of years back.
Compleat Angler’s Russell Mason takes a look at where the fish are biting across the region.
Lake Hume: has improved quite a bit in the past week.
Not everyone’s catching reddies but success rates have improved out of sight, with quite a number of fishos now nailing a few with some good size amongst them too.
Peter Uruski nailed a massive bag during the week, catching well over 100 on bait. Quite a few fishos are trolling good fish then dropping bait or casting small meal blades or bibles minnows around once they’ve found them.
Don’t forget that a small plastic above both bait and lure will increase your catch rate.
Murray River: both above and below Lake Hume is looking great for next weekend’s cod opening, with both clear water and reasonable levels expected.
With clear water in both areas, I’d say the old spinnerbaits, along with the massive variety of hard bodies, swimbaits, and surface lures, will get a good run and should work well in these conditions.
Mulwala: will be packed. The classic is always held on opening weekend so if you’re into comps, that’s the place to be.
Blowering and Burrinjuck: both worth a look. Both are producing yellas on fishing bait and lure. I’m sure the cod will pick up a bit with this warm weather about. Not huge numbers of reddies at either at the moment.