AlbertW

Great report haha, great to see you casting improved and picking up the topwater lures scarily fast. Cheers, Albert

Hey All, Sorry it’s taken a while to get this report up but I’ve been pretty busy ever since I got back. Anyways one day I randomly decided to go and target Murray cod and for some reason Tamworth was on my mind. No special reason but I think I heard that it held cod for a long time ago. Did some more research and learnt about all of the New England area. As many of you know @big Neil is a gun cod fisho so he was the first person I reached out to. After a couple of messages he was able to connect me with @Hill373737. Hilly (Steve), being the top bloke he is, offered to take me out and try to get on my first cod. I then headed up with the parents to Tamworth and occupied them with some touristy things to do, e.g lookouts, museums etc. Day 1 I got up at the ripe time of 4 am and by 4:45 Hilly was already outside of my hotel ready to go with kayaks in tow. By around first light we were already on the peel river. Straight away we got over our first rock bar (the first of many). Then after riding the current for 30 seconds we hit the second rock bar. This now opened up to much bigger river, probably 30-40m in width. We started off with topwater, fishing the cod walloped with not much action. Hilly had a cod swirl on his but that was the end of that. After a while we heard a big boof on the water and by the time I got there there were only white feathers on the surface, Hilly and I both suspected that it was a small cockatoo that had been boofed by a cod. Despite that sign nothing else came of topwater and we switched to diving stump jumpers. The biggest learning curve was that of positing myself along the bank and making accurate casts with the baitcaster as I had very little experience with it. After half an hour the accuracy started breaking in and I could cast into snags and only get snagged on the trees a couple of times. Soon Hilly managed to wrestle a yellow belly from underneath a stack of submerged branches and I took some pics for him. A while later I managed to pick up my own yella, casting along a wall of roots and soil. We fished most of the snags along the way with no more hookups so we stopped at the next rockbar and had a lunch break. We then proceeded to spend half an hour going down a tiny stream, getting caught every now and then on rocks and having to get out and push the yak into deeper water. We finally reached the second part of the river and it was a bit shallower than the first bit but had more cod holding structure. We fished on for another couple of hours, tackling snags and getting snagged in the process. I was casting at a tree until Hilly yelled out “I’m on to a cod!” or something along the lines of that. Hilly had been peppering a bunch of submerged twigs and had successfully annoyed a cod into taking the lure and it was a decent one! We quickly paddled to a shallow area where we could stand up and land the fish and just as I was about to snap the lip grip on the cod it ducked under and the treble came loose. We estimated it was about 70cm which is a pretty decent cod but nothing compared to Hilly’s 124cm cod from last season. Nothing else for the rest of the day but it was already enough for me to see such a big cod. We then paddled all the way back up river, crossing rock bars and even dragging the yaks along the shore for the final stretch. The entire journey was hard on my bum and I had foolishly declined borrowing a foam pad for the seat but for Hilly who’s basically an ex champion kayak racer the 6km round trip was considered easygoing and relaxed. Then it was back to the hotel for dinner and an early nights sleep. Day 2 Woke up even earlier on day 2, crawling up at around 3 o’ clock in the morning as Hilly had gotten the boat out and we were heading out to a dam. Again, we were on the water just as it was first light. We started off with topwater again, me using the same cod walloper and a seedless frog and Hilly an assortment of surface and subsurface lures such as walkers and shallow divers. No luck on topwater so we packed up and sped off to another spot. We put the trolling motor in and slowly worked the submerged trees that littered the bay we were in. Both of us started throwing divers and spinnerbaits and working them past the snags. Hilly had switched to a lighter baitcaster with a smaller spinnerbait rigged with a black grub. When suddenly liked the cod he managed to hook up to a fish as he was working the base of the tree. The fish took off like a rocket which gave it away that it was a carp. After getting it in the boat and snapping a few pics, I was given the honours of bonking it on the head and leaving it on the shore to feed the foxes. There was nothing notable about the rest of the day, except some bites and taps that never seemed to connect. And with the wind rolling in fast we decided to call it quits, after trying around 5-6 spots. Back at the boat ramp we met Bob (haha don’t know you lived in Tamworth Pickles) who also said that the going was tough and he only bagged out on yellow belly in an hour or two, which as Hilly explained that Bob had grew up and fished Tamworth all his life and would use freshwater prawns as bait or tree jig with grubs. We had a nice chat at the boat ramp spinning a few yarns, especially Bob who recounted once how he forgot his reel and used a coke bottle he found to handline in a metery cod. As Hilly explained on day 1 the dam held bigger fish but it was also very easy to donut and I decided to go double or nothing (my bum was also still sore from day 1 which was a contributing factor) I was then back at Hilly’s place admiring his shed waiting for dad to pick me up. I forgot to mention earlier but Hilly has a cracking shed, with a caravan, his kayaks and trailer and his boat all fitted in only half of it. The other half held tools, fishing gear, a remote controlled race track and a bunch of other cool stuff. On his walls there was notably a laser engraving of the 124cm cod he caught on some timber and tons of pics of him or his mates holding big fish. Then dad pulled into the driveway and then we had to part ways. The next morning we quickly checked out of the hotel and I gave the river another shot for an hour but with the recent rainless weather the river in town was still too shallow to fish properly. I then had to properly part with Tamworth and we were back onto the highway. We stopped at Newcastle and while my parents got lunch I had a quick flick with a vibe on the bc and managed to tick off my first squid which was about time as I had only caught cuttlefish on squid jigs before. Got back to Sydney and picked up my dog from my mates house and went home for a well deserved nap. The end. Afterword Again, huge thanks to you@Hill373737the trip definitely would not have happened if it wasn’t for you and I really appreciate you taking the time and taking me out on your kayak and boat to hopefully get me onto a cod. Even though my cod may not have been caught the trip is still a success in my books with meeting lovely people like yourself and seeing the amazing scenery of the countryside. Cheers, albert

good stuff, might have to make a trip up to the beaches and spin for some Bonnies

Thought that I'd contribute to the cinema every now and then. An epic video that I've watched a couple times already.

Casting lighter lures, sensitivity etc etc

Good stuff @Little_Flatty, I have yet to get onto a topwater bream myself as I've only had them swirl on me or crunch my slippery dog in half. (Can't forget the tailor incident either)

Just tested it out and ultralight rods are definitely in a whole nother league. My first UL so I cant compare it to any others

Honestly mate, I think its pretty solid, I just finished spooling the reel that i paired the rod with yesterday and I was casting a 13g zman really easily, the rod was bending a little bit on the weight of the frog so the heaviest I'd use would be around 7-10g

As faker mentioned vibes will also work very well for whiting if they're not keen on topwater especially the ecogear zx's

Good luck!

Try hot water or tissues/paper towels, the trick with gulp or any scent is to not let them sit in the sun as when heated up a bit the scents get a lot more watery and oily.

Leader is definitely not too heavy, i've caught them on 12lb mono as it floats. With whiting you don't want to stop anyways so keep the lure walking and they won't even have a chance to see your leader haha. Don't know about the nippers but give it a try anyway, not much harm in bringing a nipper pump along haha, try to find a tide where you can fish a rising dead low tide, that way you can try for nippers and explore the terrain. Good Luck! Albert

Forgot to mention that the rod is currently at $139 so if you just search it up you should find it

Ahh crud, I haven’t been on fishraider in a while but a little while ago there was a really nice discount for the shimano anarchy rods and I picked up the really nice UL rod rated for 1-3kg. Have a look online maybe you might find one

Yep, I sent a message to the tweed bait account on social media and they confirmed it was theirs and that they still make em and stock em at servos

No clue haha, there’s no info on the size weight or the depth of the lures. The divers were 15 dollars and the metal slice 5

Anyways it makes a good souvenir

Hey all, Stopped at a servo on the way back home from a cod trip (report will be up) and found these. They had some other colours but didn’t bother buying them. Haven’t seen em on any websites, maybe a test location for tweedbait?

I've yet to experiment and test this out, but for me the gulp packets that are marketed for saltwater (the blue ones) are way more potent for fish that love smelly baits e.g snapper. During my trip to new zealand where i got onto some snapper and kahwai they only ever hit the saltwater packets and didn't even touch the red freshwater packets. Even the saltwater gulps from Japan didn't work. Could've just been a coincidence but Berkley does say that the water based scent they use all have the same base but have different "seasonings" or finishes for different countries/regions.

Looks delicious!

Great photos!