Murray Cod on Bass Gear

I think that sometimes anglers get too obsessed with big fish such as Metre Barra, Metre Murray Cod etc… Yes, it’s nice to catch these larger fish, but if you scale down your gear, particularly when the meteries are being difficult to catch or simply not around, you can still have a lot of fun catching smaller versions of the same species.

This has been the case over the last couple of days fishing in some Murray Cod High Country where the average size of the fish was between 45 – 60 cm.

Using a Daiwa TD Sol 3-5 kg rod matched with a TD Sol III 2500 Reel and 4 kg braid, a great little outfit purchased with Bass fishing in mind, I had a great time targeting smaller cod in some beautiful streams. For me fishing is the overall experience of enjoying the outdoors, exploring new waters I haven’t fishing before, and finding places that have had very little fishing pressure.

I certainly had two very enjoyable sessions over two days landing eight fish the first afternoon in a couple of hours, and seven the second day over one and a half hours, while walking the banks of these small streams.

It was some of the best fresh water fishing I’ve experienced in quite a while. Most of these fish were caught on surface lures, and on this gear they certainly provide some fun – there is nothing like a cod surface strike, it’s a full on explosion!

So if you’re looking at exploring some high country, small stream waterways for Murray Cod, get onto Google Earth, find some likely streams with public access (there’s plenty of TSR land in NSW and most property owners are very approachable if you do the right thing and ask permission), you don’t even need a boat…
Throw in a 4 kilo outfit and have some fun – it’s all relative with the size of the gear to size of fish, it’s a great way to spend the day!

John Haenke

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