[Fishing a senko for Murray cod]

I agree with Dave - cod are generally tough to catch in dams but senkos may be an option in a flowing river where you can target specific areas that cod are likely to sit in ambush however if it was me, I'd still be throwing something with more flash and action as I suspect a lot of cod hits are a reaction bite when fishing lures.

[Daughter and grandchild visiting for Easter.]

Well done Neil - I suspect you only picking up 1 fish on the first day  would be due to you being busy keeping James and Debbie sorted and fishing!!

At least with cocktail franks, it would be one of the best options if you needed to snack on the bait.

I have vivid memories of fishing in Kiritimati many years ago and watching our guide pick up and start nibbling on a tuna frame that had been lying on the gunnel in the sun for a few hours!!

[The guides life]

Dave, great photos and write up - its always very satisfying to take someone out and get them onto some fish, especially when its american fishos onto an iconic aussie fish. Well done mate!!

[Long day on the 'Bidgee with visitors from Victoria]

Nice work BN, that looks like a good session mate and I'm pleased you got out and got a few.

Its still very hit and miss here, few fish around but you definitely work for them.

[Chasing cod in February!]

On 3/8/2024 at 8:15 PM, Pickles said:

Love those lures Steve - it’s great to catch fish on handmade lures and gear, especially if it is your own or a mates (Dan did a great job, looks like camphor laurel timber). A great report and magic pics.

Yeah mate, they're camphor laurel, I think its one of his favourite timbers to work with.

[Chasing cod in February!]

9 hours ago, R E G I C Y C L E said:

Wow they are incredible... if there is ever a chance to purchase some let me know!

Will do, at the moment he's making a few prototypes to fine-tune them, once he's happy and he (we) have a few fish on them, I think he'll probably make a few for sale.

[Chasing cod in February!]

On 3/6/2024 at 7:24 AM, Little_Flatty said:

I love these!

What beautiful works of art, and I love that they've been left unpainted and 'true to their materials' as architects would say.

That they catch fish is a huge bonus.

@R E G I C Y C L E @Little_Flatty Thanks for the comments on the lures, they are beautiful and make a great change to painted lures. Here's a few more photos of different prototypes Dan has so far.

Here's a few topwater lures for cod.

 

And a few Bass Bugs

And a couple of spinnerbaits, there are weights inside the timber but early experience is its tough to get the balance right to make them swim well.

 

[Chasing cod in February!]

On 3/6/2024 at 6:33 AM, rickmarlin62 said:

Stop it   im 4.5 hrs away and stuk workin

Thats probably a good thing, I don't need you up @rickmarlin62 here annoying the cod!! haha!!

[Chasing cod in February!]

On 3/5/2024 at 6:52 PM, big Neil said:

A good wrap up of your fishing adventures Hilly. I have hardly been out as it is too hot after about 9am, not 100% at present either. Went to check out a boat ramp last week and spent a few hours under the shade of 1 big gum tree. 1 Cod which would have been a keeper but couldn't be bothered so put it back in. The ramp is a disaster with about 7m of hardened mud between the end of the concrete and the water. Can't wait till the weather cools down a bit here, been very oppressively hot.

Excellent photos too.

Good luck for your March assault on the Cod.  bn

Great that you've got out mate, its the same up here, damn hot by 9am.

Slow start for the month, a few cod and yellas but lost a good cod lyesterday evening after dragging the kayak most of 2kms up river to get to a stretch of river I hadn't fished before, it got deep into a snag and during a bit of tug-of-war, I pulled the hooks, this was then followed by dragging the kayak a couple of kms back to the river as a lot of the river was too shallow to paddle.

Hope you're on the mend!

cheers 

Hilly

[Fishing the Murrumbidgee River video (experimental)]

1 hour ago, big Neil said:

Don't book any accommodation, I have 4 spare bedrooms. Just let me know when.   bn

Thanks for the offer mate, we'll have the van in tow so should be OK for accommodation - we're just currently tossing up between a run along the Murray / Murrumbidgee in May or Darling River / Menindee / Broken Hill. If we do the latter, I'll get down your way later in the year as I'm keen to have a crack at a cod in my grandfathers old stomping ground, Balranald.

 

 

[Chasing cod in February!]

28 minutes ago, Rockspinking said:

I’m out here at Tamworth at the moment for work. The river around town is looking very low.Was hoping to throw a line in the afternoons after work but it’s not looking to good.

Hey @Rockspinking water level is low but there are a few deeper sections near town that hold cod but do get a bit of pressure. I'll drop you a PM with some spots.

[Fishing the Murrumbidgee River video (experimental)]

@big Neil that is a lovely piece of work mate, well done.

With a bit of luck I'll be down that way in May, will touch base once I finalise  details to see if we can organise a catch up.

cheers

Hilly

[Chasing cod in February!]

February followed the trend off the previous few months for me with some good days and a few tough days. 

I seem to have lost my cod mojo at Split Rock and put together 5 cod donuts in a row before I finally picked up a small cod. I was pumped to just get a fish there but had too laugh when I bumped into a guy at the ramp that I knew and he boated a 108 and 93 on his last couple of casts that morning - I'm sure you need a touch of the masochist to fish for cod  (actually, probably any fishing of the truth is known.)

Donuts and tough periods aren't unusual when fishing impoundments but previously the river is like a cod fishing therapy session however thats not the case at the moment ..... fortunately, the scenery has been spectacularly consistent. 

Its not all about the scenery and there have been enough fish to keep things interesting, although I reckon the fish to cast ratio must be very low.

My fishing mate, Dan, who is an absolute whizz with timber has been dabbling with making lures, he has made a few different prototypes and for cod, he has a nice 80mm diver and a couple of top water lures. They are absolutely beautiful looking lures and it was great to see him christen a diver last week on a nice cod. 

Thats a wrap for February in the fresh up here, roll on March which will include a few days hopefully annoying some big flatties over the coast next week.

cheers

Hilly

[Boats owned past and present]

@frankS Mate, that is an impressive list. I've had 6 since my first boat in 1988 which iwas a roof topper when we travelleed around australia for a few years and I thought I'd had a few.

I always lusted after a Betram 28 back when I was doing a lot of offshore fishing in the late '90s .... it would still be a dream boat for me but would probably look out of place up at Split Rock, if I could fit it on a trailer.!! haha!!

Its sometimes too easy to think of a boat as a hole in the water that you throw money into, but they actually buy some great memories!!

Thanks for sharing!!

Hilly

[Swordies new boat - pimping the ride]

Thanks for sharing this Donna, looks great.

We finally got our van last year (also a Manta Ray, we love it) and since then I keep tossing up selling my Renegade 420 and getting a topper to take with us when we're away in the van. 

What boat loader are you using, any photos of the boat on the roof?

Hilly

[On The Improve!!]

10 hours ago, Pickles said:

Another great report @Hill373737, very healthy looking cod and great pics (as always 👍).

Those spinnerbaits work so well on so many different species. I I often wonder what will be the next big thing in artificial baits.

 

Thanks @Pickles, spinnerbaits are also a fairly easy lure to fish so a great way for newbies to start in freshwater. I have often wondered how very small spinnerbaits would work on bream, I might give it a shot one day when I'm over the coast.

I also love throwing chatterbaits up here, I'm heading over the coast for a few days in March around the new moon to hopefully annoy a few big flatties on the flats and have been thinking about taking a fcouple of big chatterbaits to run along dropoffs as the tide drops and water drains off the flats.

[Lake Macquarie tips and tricks]

17 hours ago, _chris_ said:

Hi everyone,

I’m planning to do a trip up to Lake Macquarie in the next couple of weeks. I have never fished there before, but I was wondering if anyone has any tips or suggestions they could give me. Also if you have any spots you can suggest to me if you’re happy to share. I will be on a boat and will be using both bait and lures. Thanks.

Chris  - Lake Mac is a big piece of water and I'm not sure where you're planning on launching I used to fish the southern end regularly in the area south of Pulbah Island, its 10m deep with bugger all structure but holds a lot of bait which attracts jew and flatties, and in the cooler months, big tailor and salmon.

[On The Improve!!]

It feels like the fishing in the river has improved in the past week, hard to say why but the water level seems to have stabilised for now and the barometer has been low but steady.

I headed over to one of my regular spots this morning, its a section that has previously produced my 2 biggest river cod and usually fishes well.

Conditions were great , not much wind, overcast and 25 degrees at 5:45am and a cracking sunrise had me feeling optimistic.

I was still burning from losing a good fish near there 2 days ago, it managed to get into a root ball before I could turn it and buried itself into the submerged timber. It was about 1.5m below the surface as I coulkd see my leader knot and I gave it a couple of pokes with my paddle which sometimes gets them back out but this one just buried in further and unfortunately I busted off.

I started throwing a Cod Walloper top water lure in the pre dawn light but with the recent strong winds, there was a lot of leaves etc on the surface so I changed to a spinnerbait,  using one of my favourites for the river, a Full Moon Jnr Bruiser in Purple.

It didn't take long and I had 2 small cod in the kayak. The cod had been hard to find and spinnerbaits just didn't work recently so things are looking up.

I was starting to feel like I was back in the cod groove when my lure got absolutely belted coming past a nice laydown in an area with vertical high banks so good water depth. In my head, I had started the "good cod, good cod" mantra and was shocked to find I'd hooked a stonka yellowbelly which was definitely bigger than my previous river best of 48cms.

A quick lipgrip when I got it to the kayak then had to swim it across to the other side of the river to find a tiny endge I could get out of the kayak for a photo and measure. It went 52.5cm and put up a good fight on cod gear, it would have been a handful a few months when it was closed season.

Here's a couple of photos from a short but good session on the river:

 

 

 

 

[Great light tackle session but hard lesson learned at Morrison Bay Sydney]

Sounds like a good session @lhan, nice work, fishing with light tackle is great fun.

In my craziest bream period, I was using 3lb braid and 3lb leader which usually means goodbye lure if there is tailor or even flatties around. I often tied on a bite leader - about 75mm of 15lb between the light leader and the lure - definitely saved me a lot of pain and frustration.

[Christening the Baitcaster]

Nice work, good to christen the reel with the freshwater double!!

[Caught by hand]

Nice work on the rescue!!

I've had a wallaby swim across Stingray Creek neer Laurieton, passing just a couple of metres from my boat. 

There's also a small island in Split Rock Dam that has had a solitary kangaroo on it since the water level spiked up to 100% back in October 2022, once the water level drops back to around 70% the submerged part of the ridge will appear and it will be able to join its mates.

[Froggin']

I decided to unleash the frog again on Friday morning, I upsized the jighead to 1/6th from 1/8th chinlock and was surprised to see it could still easily be blooped across the surface. 

Something about the action of the frog seems to work well, given the fishing has been tough lately and I was only out for a couple of hours, it was hit 10 times for 3 hookups including a small cod around the 40cm mark and 2 nice yellowbelly. 

I'm starting to think I should find an 8" frog, it might flush out some of the bigger cod. 🙂

Here's a couple of photos from the session

 

 

[Froggin']

There's a lot of weed in the river now, some sections are unfishable its so thick!

 

[Froggin']

1 hour ago, rickmarlin62 said:

That sounds like fun   have you caught any yellas in the other river we spoke about

I have caught yellas there as bycatch targetting cod but haven't taken the frog there yet. 

I fished it with a mate in December and we managed 10 cod between us, biggest went 70 , although the water level has dropped a fair bit since then. I'll also need to find another access point as they've closed the road I used for 3 months to repair the low level bridge.

[Kicking holiday goals]

Great photos and report, and that is one very nice cod, well done!!