The Murray cod is Australia’s best known freshwater species. Found throughout the Murray Darling Basin the cod is a strikingly pretty fish with a mottled green back and a creamy white underbelly. 

They have a massive mouth and make good use of it, scoffing down anything and everything from small birds to fish and even lizards – folklore records tales of them dragging whole kangaroos into the river. While this is most certainly an exaggeration there is no denying their huge appetite.

The Murray-Darling Basin is a massive system.  It drains the entire south-east corner of Australia from the granite-lined mountain streams to the slow, lumbering rivers of the outback before meeting the ocean at the Coorong in South Australia.  Murray cod are found throughout the system from Canberra to Western Queensland. Hot spots include the Darling River around Bourke, Lake Mulwala on the Murray and the Severn River in the New England District. My personal favourite is the Murrumbidgee River, especially the Riverina district near Wagga. Here the river is loaded with snags and cod.

I fished with this section while filming with a show for Big Fish Small Boats with the local gurus from the Compleat Angler and Wagga Marine and was blown away by the fishing. In just one days fishing we caught dozens of cod including a couple of solid fish as well as a mix of other species including trout, cod, and yellowbelly. As good as it was, the fishing was almost a bonus - the outback location made the whole experience a real pleasure. 

Murray cod can be caught by just about anything and over the years I have caught them on everything from a spinnerbait to a piece of wild pig. Bait fishing is hugely popular and some of the best bait has to be yabbies – pinned through the tail and drifted down among the snags or dropoffs is a sure way to get a hook up.

While bait fishing may be popular, for me you can't go past the lures. Drifting along in a tinny or walking the bank flicking lures at likely spots is more like a form of hunting than fishing. The trick is to identify the best real estate in cod terms and that is usually the most established snags. This is where cod take up residence and then wait in the shadows ambushing unsuspecting prey as it swims past in the current. As Jamin Forbes, one of the best cod fishermen in the country puts it: 'the older the snag the bigger the cod that lived there.' 

The best lures are deep diving lures like RMGs that have a wide, slow, wobbling action. The trick is to remember that cod are ambush hunters so they key is to get the lures right in tight against the snags and then retrieve them very slowly. You want to tempt or even annoy the fish into striking and the longer that lure sits there under its nose the more likely it is that the fish will react. Cod don't fight too hard but strikes are explosive and have been known to rip rods from the hands of unwitting anglers. Still, offer the chance of hooking a 50 pound fish and there is little wonder everyone wants to catch a cod. 

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Written: Wed 01 Jan 2014
Printed: January, 2014
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