There were cod caught in all rivers, streams and lakes that I know of and there were some rippers among them.

I heard of quite a few solid fish from the Upper Murray, with a couple of the better ones hooked by Jake Adamiac who landed an 800 and a 900 on chicken.

It sounds like no one was more excited about their catch than junior Jindera Anglers Club member Ashton Lee-Brown who caught a 97.5cm whopper.

Ashton and all those members who witnessed the release were pretty excited to see it swim off for someone else to try and hook onto too!

The club was based at "The Tennis Courts" reserve at Talmalmo, just a couple of kilometres above the old Dora Dora pub.

This is quite a large reserve and has been a destination for fishos and campers for as long as I can remember.

River access isn't that easy to come by and with heaps of shade, beautiful camping, a lovely big gravel bar in front and easy boat launching, this is one of the best reserves in the Upper Murray.

I've camped on this reserve myself over 50 years ago and many times since and was surprised to hear that a section of the reserve is to be closed.

You can bet one thing; once it's closed it will never become accessible to the public again.

AT A GLANCE

Dartmouth (52.9%): wasn't that great for Paul Rennie and a few mates last weekend, only boating five fish over a couple of days of which all were caught flat-lining.

The boys admitted they didn't fish ridiculously hard but reckoned they'd put in enough effort for a better result and were a little surprised that downriggers and fenders, which they fished reasonably hard with, didn't do much for them. Considering there has been a few caught of late they were a tad disappointed.

Rumour has it that a few yabbies are moving up that way too but I still haven't had any firsthand reports yet.

Lake Hume (32.1%): is firing if you want a yella or two, particularly if you're slow-rolling those grubs around the timber.

There's plenty of reports of good numbers coming in and that definitely seems to be the method of the moment. There are some good ones being trolled, along with a couple of good reddies and the odd cod.

Bait fishos are reporting heaps of reddies but there's plenty of little blokes among the occasional decent bag.

Hayden Burles picked up some good fish on yabbies and flicking plastics last Wednesday at secret location 'X' apparently.

The Bidgee: has been great.

Good numbers being caught using all methods and some big fish in amongst them.

Unfortunately, Aaron Dickson didn't have any of those big ones when he sent me a text on Thursday evening but he had managed eight cod for the arvo, which he was pretty chuffed about.

Blowering (44.1%): has been reasonable with some good cod mainly showing up on bait and the odd one being trolled.

Still no news yet about the death of all those big cod but we'll keep you posted on that one. Unfortunately, the reddies are still really quiet up there, which is puzzling and disappointing.

Streams: are low but fishing reasonably well in most areas.

There are lots of small hoppers getting about so you would imagine that they'll be forming a big chunk of most trouts' diets in the near future. There's heaps of cicada around at the moment too.

My young bloke Ben fished the Snowy, above Mitta, the other day and picked up a couple of reasonable "streamies" on fly, as well as dropping a few. He then dropped back to the Mitta and picked up a couple on lure before landing a belter on a dry fly just on dark.

The big one he landed went 2.828 kg dressed so would have been well over 6.5lb whole weight in the old money.

Unfortunately, he couldn't get it going again after a long fight but on the upside, we look like having smoked trout for Christmas!

Mulwala: was the busiest lake in the southern hemisphere last weekend, with 2841 entrants hitting the lake and surrounds to win one of the multitude of prizes up for grabs. The 2841 competitors caught 793 legal cod of which 11 were over the metre mark!

When you work it out though, when you have 2841 competitors, that means at least 3000 rods in the water (some bait fishos in there) for around say, 10 hours on Saturday and three hours on Sunday.

That equals about 39,000 hours divided by 11 meterys, so that gives you very, very roughly 3545 hours per metre fish?

If you calculate the total number of cod, including stuff that wasn't big enough to weigh at a very, very rough guess again, let's say five to one small fish to keepers, you end up with roughly 4000 cod at an average of 9.75 hours per fish.

Obviously these numbers are as rough as guts and I've only done it for a laugh but I'm sure it would be scary to actually calculate how many hours it takes us all per fish and even scarier, how many dollars.

Burrinjuck (32.5%): has been very good of late for both cod and yellas and would be well worth a visit if you get a chance.

Send your fishing photos and details of your catch to 0475 953 605 or 0475 947 279.