Albany/Wodonga

ALBURY/WODONGA Connor Heir

ACod anglers, it’s time to dust off the heavy gear, tie those fresh leaders and get stuck into it. It really is an exciting time of year as a Murray cod angler. The 3-month season closure not only gives the species time the constant high and dirty water has made it hard to fish in a lot of local areas, particularly the rivers and creeks where I would usually spend my opening few months of the Murray cod season.

If the rainfall does back off as previously predicted, we could be in for an awesome cod season in the happen with forecasting the weather and future rainfall, but experts are predicting La Niña to pass into the early year. And let’s be honest, we are all hoping that this is correct.

Putting cod season aside, the wrap-up of spring time was a really exciting time to be fishing. We saw amazing numbers of

It’s hard to beat the patterns on these amazing fish.

to breed, but also it gives we anglers time to reflect on how much we really love chasing these amazing fish. And now the wait is over – cod season is here!

As I write this article in advance, it can be difficult to predict what flows are going to be like going into the end of December and into the new year. La Niña has stuck around for a long time now, and we had one of the wettest springs in a long time, and certainly the wettest I’ve ever seen in my life. While consistent rainfall can do good for ecosystems, upcoming year. After any floods and flush-outs of our rivers, the fishing is always just better after it (once it returns back to normal flows and clarity). Summertime is always a really good time of year to chase down good numbers of fish. You can have sessions that exceed into double figures of fish landed on most outings, if the conditions are right.

I think cod anglers around our region should be excited for what’s to come once the weather patterns do return to normal. It’s never fully guaranteed what will yellowbelly pulled from Lake Hume, and the trout fishing in the river below Lake Hume was nothing short of epic as well.

The yellowbelly fishing in particular was some of the best yellowbelly fishing I’ve ever seen personally in my life, the numbers of fish caught were high and also just the quality of most of the fish caught was amazing too. And if cod season isn’t shaping up to being good for flows and clarity, like always Lake Hume is also on our doorstep to fish, no matter what time of year.

For the most part, into the cod season for this time of year we can usually expect pretty good results on catching numbers of fish. Walking banks, kayaking or boating – it doesn’t matter, our region offers some really fantastic places to do any of these styles of fishing. For me personally, cod opening is all about going back to basics and fishing the way that first got me hooked: walking the banks of the small water systems. However, no matter what style of fishing you prefer, it’s definitely an exciting time of year just to get back into what we love doing.

All the best for this cod season, and good luck.

Walking the banks small water cod fishing is where it all started for many keen cod anglers.

The calm before the storm. A quality Lake Hume golden perch from late spring. We should see golden perch numbers fire into the warmer months.