BIG is great BUT..... SMALL is a blast.

A view that gives a native lure caster the urge to get amongst the timber and go Goodoo hunting.

      Now, listen carefully, I am in no way (heaven forbid) even hinting at the thought that maybe we all are just spending a little too much time searching for our “personal best”, but there is a point in time when we all need to ask ourselves what it is that drives us to continually put in our time and money in this sport. If you all answered it’s for the fun and enjoyment of the sport then I’d think your right and quite honest. But! Spending all day out on the water is hard work and can be at times quite disheartening with many trips seeing you with very little in the way of hook-ups to brag about back at camp. Many will also feel the pain and sting of losing expensive lures trying to get down to the big fella’s after hours spent on the water. So what it is I’m alluding to in this article is to not just always be thinking big and being hell bent on your personal best but from time to time we need to think about getting back into the fun of angling for Murray Cod. Areas of water where the fish may not be very big but they are there in larger numbers to keep a keen angler entertained is where a weary trophy hunter needs to head to get some sanity and maybe some pride back. I don’t mind hooking up with smallish fish as they all give you that frill of a catch and most Murray Cod at any size can give a good account of themselves and all anglers would feel much the same, so just because your catch isn’t huge or lacks brag value doesn’t mean it can’t be fun and exciting.

The whole point I am trying to make here became quite evident to me on a trip to Lake Mulwala last February. On this trip I had the opportunity to spend a weekend with a great bunch of blokes who all have the same love and passion for lure casting for Murray Cod. The focus of the whole trip was to mainly give surface lure casting in the evening a real go and for those who have experienced this will know just how exciting this form of lure casting can be but this is another story that I just might pen another time. It was actually during the daytime after spending many countless hours on the water in 40 degree heat and not much in the way of fish that I said to myself, “Enough is enough! When’s the fun part going to happen?” So I decided it was time to head over to a favorite part of the lake where I know I can get a few strikes to feed my sense of accomplishment when the day seems to be a little quiet. The northern & north western banks of Lake Mulwala are a real favorite spot of mine that never usually lets me down in the hook-up department. In these shallower areas along much of the banks is an area that I have always found to be the savior of my fishing pride. It’s in this part of the lake that there are huge areas of log jams lining the banks of much of this area, although the fish are traditionally smaller but they are in larger numbers to keep a lure caster amused for hours after a long failed slog hunting his personal best. The Murray Cod in this part of the lake range from wee size to 60cm usually. Casting at the myriad of snags with spinner baits, hard bodied lures or even soft plastics will see you hook up to a few fish that will soon fill your heart with contentment and satisfaction. One thing that always amazes me is that the small Murray Cod here always seem to be very aggressive and really can hit your lures with ferocity that can at times surprise an angler and have him thinking he has a good sized fish hooked up only to find it’s around the 40-50cm mark.

A 59cm Murray Cod that took a Bridgewater Spinnerbait in less than a metre of water late morning in the outer shallows on Lake Mulwala.

"small Murray Cod here always seem to be very aggressive"

      A good afternoon session may see an angler with many hook-ups especially in the warmer and milder times of the year although most of the catch will be undersized. Great care is needed to release these fish with out harm as these are the main nursery fish of the lake and possibly our future “Magical Marks” one day we would hope. The abundance of Murray Cod in this area is really quite phenomenal and an angler’s secret to success casting for them is in the presentation of the correct lure placed in the appropriate places. Spinnerbaits are without doubt the greatest success story here as the ability to drop these lures bang-on in the strike zone and no doubt almost on the nose of a Murray Cod puts you in with the best chance to draw a strike. Casting at every conceivable snag and repeating your casts 4 to 6 times at the same snag then repeating the same at the next snag and so on and so on is the best work ethic a lure caster could use. Accurate casting, reading the water depth and fish holding capability of the snags in the area will be a huge advantage as the fish will hold tight in the hollows below the sunken timber. Casting into 1.5m to 2.5m of water is very common place here and you will be surprised even in some of the shallower areas below 1.0m will score you a strike and even more so as the sun sinks toward the end of the day and into the twilight.

Hard bodied diving lures will do well also but you will need to give much thought to how these lures behave when they dive down through the water as it’s their nature by design to take a metre or so of retrieved line to get down to the strike zone. The smart lure caster will quickly learn that getting the best performance out of his lures and lure casts would be to cast parallel along the length of sunken logs or along the face of stacked timber. Your casting target needs to be a couple of metres past the estimated strike zone to give your diving lure every chance to get down at the fishes level. Also don’t be shy about getting your lure deep into the snags and knock as much timber as you can with the lure as this will further enhance your chances of getting a Cods attention.

Soft plastics are another option to try and the range you have to choose from is immense but you need to be a little creative and sort out what you think would work. Experiment with different scenarios and combinations of soft plastics and different jigheads and weights, as they all have various characteristics and will each work differently in the water. Presentation is the big plus soft plastics have in their favour and you only have your imagination to present a fantastic lure to an aggressive Murray Cod and/or Golden Perch. Another great use of soft plastics is to use them on spinnerbaits as they give your lure a great presentation, form and visual attraction. It also gives your game a more natural feel when being attacked and I find that a fish would quite freely continue to attack it until it finally takes the hook. Using this type of combination I have also found that a stinger hook is not required (if it was ever needed for Murray Cod in the first place) but many like and even insist on using them. If you do like using stinger hooks you can cleverly place your soft plastic on both hooks and it will certainly stop your spinnerbait from snagging up much of the time.

You will snag your lures up from time to time but it shouldn’t be much of a hassle getting them back with a good tackle retriever. The water depth in this area mostly is quite shallow so lure retrieving usually is quite simple so get your lure down into that timber. Don’t be shy about getting snagged up and after you have gained a good deal of experience you will find you will snag up considerably less but the fact of life is you will lose the odd lure from time to time even with a good lure retriever. Another great and very handy tool if you’re a boat owner is to buy a painters aluminium extension pole and fashion a wire device at the end that will run along your fishing line like a tackle retriever would and a little length of smallish chain on the end. Also, using an old paint roller frame is a good option and all you need to do is re-engineer its wire frame and “violla”, you have a nifty retriever on the cheap that will screw straight onto the painter’s extension pole. The only advice I would add would be to insert a grub screw into the handle so your new schmig retriever does not unscrew and become lost to the lake. You will quickly find that this retrieving pole will become invaluable and saves a lot of time getting your lures back. You will use this pole more often in shallow areas as lure recovery is a lot quicker and less stressful than using a tackle retriever and nylon cord. This talk about lure retrievers reminds me of a chat I had with a few mates a while ago, it started with a discussion on how much a certain type of lure retriever cost and that one of these mates wanted to buy one. I told him he can buy my old one, and I proceeded to tell him that I paid about $19 for this old Tackleback 10 years ago but it’s now valued at over $5000 but he could have it for $2000 as I considered him a mate. He looked at me blankly and puzzled for a moment and then it finally clicked and he had quite a chuckle. It just goes to show that a good lure retriever does save you hundreds or thousands of dollars over a period of time so you can see just how invaluable they are. If you cast lures and don’t have one or more, you have more money than brains. I have a variety of lure retrievers to suit all types of water conditions. Large very heavy ones to suit the river when the current is running hard, a smaller one for the lake or still water and a real thumper for the real stubborn snags and the magical pole.

So wrapping up here I would like to think a few more anglers might just take a breather from their incessant chase for their personal best and get back into the fun of casting and hooking up to a few not so trophy size Murray Cod in the name of increasing the enjoyment level of their day out.  The big positive to come out of this would be that the number of hook ups will increase immensely and hence make you a very happy angler and you will also regain an appreciation of just how well the smaller Murray Cod are developing and seem to be found in good numbers which we all hope will add value to the sustainability of our Murray Cod Populations and of course add value to our angling successes.

Happy casting & keep on Goodoo dreaming! And remember, big Cod are great but the small ones can be just plain fun!

Cheers

Ian Stead

from the Goodoo Dreaming Website.

Web: www.goodoodreaming.com

Email: steady@goodoodreaming.com

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