THE time is upon us. Yes, cod season is now officially open and we can legally fish for these majestic creatures.
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For those of us who do the right thing and not target cod during the closed season, it gets the blood pumping with anticipation of catching a metrey or getting a PB.
I went for a fish down the river last weekend and the river is looking very healthy; a little bit cold and flowing a little quick for great cod fishing (not that I was fishing for cod) but it’s going to be a great season.
I put the boat in at Wiradjuri at 11am and headed down stream, where I found a nice little slow area of water and threw a worm in, within 30 seconds the rod bent over and was into a reasonably heavy fish.
I didn’t take a net as I wasn’t going to keep anything but I did have my lip grippers.
I was fishing 8lb gear, like I said I was not fishing for cod, so I fought it for a couple of minutes until I saw it and yep you guessed it, it was a big old mud sucker about 60cm.
I eventually got it to the boat, put the lip grippers in and removed my hook at the side of the boat as I won’t bring them into the boat (you just can’t get the smell out), a quick dispatch and was baiting up again.
Another couple of minutes and the rod bent again, this time no hook up, rebaited and the nothing for 15 minutes.
Moved onto the next section and all I found was mossies, there were literally thousands of the little blood sucking little beasties – yes I did clean that up a bit – I spent more time slapping myself than I did fishing so I moved on only to find more mossies.
I moved around a bit more for another hour or so and then went home.
How good is it that you can go fishing within 15 minutes of home for a couple of hours just to recharge the batteries? It is a magnificent waterway in such close proximity of Wagga (with only one concrete boat ramp servicing the whole city, a story for another time).
Back to the mossies, take repellant wherever you go this season.
If you don’t you may need a blood transfusion when you get back and I can tell you from experience you don’t want to get the Ross River virus.
When I was first diagnosed with it, it was like I was hit by a truck and I felt like a very old man … I am old, just not very old, so not nice.
Murray Cod regulations
IN CASE you didn’t know or you have forgotten, these are the regulations for Murray Cod .
- A harvesting size limit of 55cm to 75cm, a daily limit of two and a maximum of four in possession.
- Make sure you have all the correct licences and safety equipment in your boat as Fisheries and Maritime will be out in force all this season.
- I also know that most of the local cod meccas around the Riverina (Blowering, Burrinjuck, Mulwala, Murrumbidgee) are going to have lots of action. The big lures will come out and the mindset changes from big footballs to monster fish. I have already checked and replaced leaders, retied knots and renewed hooks. Blowering might be the first impoundment I will hit. Speaking of Blowering, I did hear that one fisherman landed over 100 reddies and another over 40 all in a day, haven’t seen any proof of this but there is some nice fillets or fish cakes there.
- Burrinjuck has had some good numbers of reddies as well along with a second hand report of a not so smart fisherman harvesting a cod last week – hope he posed for a picture and posted it on social media.
- For those who are interested in learning to fly fish, fly fisherman extraordinaire and all round good bloke Dave Ducker is starting up teaching fly fishing again. But its’ summer you say ... best time to learn.There is no use learning in the colder months when you go fishing, learn the art before you go. Dave showed me about 20 years ago and as I said he is one of the nicest gentlemen you could meet. If you haven’t got Dave’s number drop me a line and I will forward it to you.
