It is great to hear research being done on the Upper Murray by NSW Fisheries is still going along nicely.

It's even better to hear that they had no problems zapping up quite a few cod while electrofishing this week.

Local fisho, and member of the Upper Murray Recovery Group, Josh Read, was lucky enough to get an invite to observe how the system worked (from the bank) and was impressed with the number of healthy cod that came in.

Conditions weren't perfect, with the river being a tad high and coloured, but just the fact that there's still good numbers of cod in a good range of year classes about in the system gives us all a lot of confidence for the future of the fishery.

Lake Hume has risen over a metre this week, which equates to nearly four per cent and that's a lot of water in anyone's language.

I suppose we're all hoping that will keep pushing that dirty old water through the lake and replace it with some that might bring us fishos better luck.

The other thing that rise has done is bring the bulk of the concrete ramps on the Hume back into play, with Tallangatta (51 per cent), Kookaburra number 2 (45 per cent) and Ebden number 2 (42 per cent) the only three without water on them ... yet.

It's pretty doubtful the lake will rise another four per cent this week but it won't be that long before we see the lower two in use.

Dartmouth Dam, at 51.06 per cent, continues to be the best pick of our local fishing destinations, with pretty constant reports of reasonable fish of reasonable size in reasonable numbers and you can't ask for much more than that.

While a lot of fish are still being caught flat-lining, there definitely seems to be more fishos increasing their success rate by adding a bit of weight to their lures or getting down a bit using all the other common methods over the past week or so.

It's still got me buggered why we were able to catch heaps of fish flat-lining years ago at this time of year - we never considered fishing at other depths.

Summer was always a different proposition because of high surface water temps and paravanes were basically the only thing available and a "must-have".

Maybe it was as simple as there being more fish about?

There's no doubt that being able to cover the whole water column is a massive advantage and we're now pretty lucky to live in an era where we can accurately find those fish and accurately target them.

Lake Hume hasn't produced a heap of stories apart from a couple of yellas still being caught from the bank on worms or yabbies.

Trolling for trout and other species is still hard yakka but with the lake rising and clarity steadily getting better, it should only be a matter of time before we see some sort of improvement.

Murray River: Below Hume rose a tad with the recent rains. It's still difficult to get about because of the low river levels but once you get the boat in, it's been well worthwhile.

The crays have been great and there's an odd cod and yella to be had too.

You've gotta be keen to chase cod in the river in these conditions but it can be pretty productive.

A couple of young blokes I know picked up an 880mm and a 620mm on swimbaits during the week in two sessions between Albury and the Twelve Mile Reserve.

Mulwala: Tough going but there's always someone plucking something out of that lake. We've had quite a few doughnut stories but we've also seen and heard of a few decent fish so it's worth a visit. Bait fishos have been getting a few.

As far as I know, the Majors Creek ramp is still closed due to improvement works so keep that in mind if you're heading in that direction.

Blowering (54.8%): has been tough again this week but we've had very few reports after last weekend's weather. It's creeping up a bit too, so you'd think it would be ideal for bait fishos.