Flicking for Murray cod from the bank KEIWA VALLEY
Robbie Alexander
For years I looked at photos of people catching Murray cod from the banks of rivers on lures and often wondered how they did it. Every time I went out to give it a go I would come home with my head held low. No fish and a few less lures was usually the result. After a while I realised that most of the photos were taken in the far lower reaches of the waterways where the streamside vegetation is made up of
open clay banks, a few red gums and not much else. Down in the arid regions of southwest NSW and northwest Victoria, riparian vegetation is usually quite thin allowing for easy access to the water in most places. However, up here in northeast Victoria the riparian vegetation is usually very dense with native shrubs, blackberry bushes, red gum trees, willow trees and all other kinds of bushes that seem to conspire against us to make it almost impossible to access the water’s edge in most locations. A few years ago I
MUSTAD .NO
Brenton Richardson with a beautiful clear water Murray cod caught while wading a northeast Victorian river casting spinnerbaits.
started figuring it out, and now during the Murray cod season I catch fish off the bank on most outings, and lose few lures. Let me explain how. WALKING THE BANK Walking the bank is not always what it seems. Usually the best option is to find an access point and get into the water and wade upstream, in a similar fashion that you would if you were fishing for trout. The rivers in northeast Victoria all have some very deep holes, which are often the best places to find Murray cod, and most of these holes are broken up by sections of shallow water running between them. A lot of the deep holes, particularly in the upland rivers, are only deep on one side and can be waded through on the shallow side. Often I find myself in water well over my waist as I try to make my way through the shallow side of the deep holes. In some instances I need to get completely out and walk around if it is too deep. I try to avoid doing this as it means I need to walk past good water. In the lower reaches of the waterways where
LOCKED AND LOADED ‘TWIST AND CHANGE’
The new Mustad Ultrapoint Fastach single piece clips are a game changer for Australian anglers. The Fastach saves you leader and time, just twist and change your lure! The Ultrapoint Fastach is the simplest method of changing lures and jigs you’ve ever seen. Due to the lightweight nature of the Fastach Clip they will not affect your lure action. Made with strong stainless steel wire and a black nickel finish. Available in 6 different sizes to suit a wide range of species and situations. Size 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5
CHANGING LURES HAS NEVER BEEN SO EASY!
Scan the code to check out how easy the Fastach are to use!
ULTRAPOINT FASTACH CLIP 6
APRIL 2014
Lauretta Alexander with a magnificent cod caught on a Koolabung surface lure cast from the bank after sunset. This cod is possibly a Murray cod-trout cod hybrid. The two species have been known to cross breed, but it is not common and the hybrids are sterile. it is deeper and the water murkier, it can be much harder to cross. So walking the banks simply means taking advantage of any opportunity you get to access the water and fish it really heavily, crossing the river wherever possible, if possible. In these lower reaches, it is usually possible to fish every second bend in the river as you can often access it from the inside of the bend, which is usually a sand bar, or gravel bar depending on which river you are fishing. Casting from the shallow sand/gravel bar across to the deeper outside of the bend is a dynamite way to catch a Murray cod while flicking from the bank. So to sum it up, walking the banks does not always mean walking the banks, it usually includes getting in and wading for a lot of the time. If you are not willing to get wet, then you are quite simply wasting your time flicking lures from the bank in a northeast Victorian stream. AVOIDING SNAKES Snakes have a terrible stigma in this area. Absolutely everybody is petrified of them, possibly because there are so many and we see them on so many occasions. If you are really scared of snakes, then hang up your fishing rod and grab your golf sticks! Having said that, black snakes are a common occurrence on our local golf course too. Seriously, when we head out fishing, we are entering the snake’s back yard. We are voluntarily entering their domain and need to treat them with respect. Most people who are bitten by snakes are usually trying to either catch or kill the snake. If people would just walk past them there would be far fewer snake bites each year. I have been walking the banks of these Victorian
waterways for over 30 years, and have seen thousands of black, brown, tiger and copperhead snakes, and have never once had one try to bite me. I have had brown snakes lunge towards me, and appear to be trying to bite me. This is called a false strike and brown snakes are notorious for it. They do it for a reason, and that is to scare you, and it works so well! The false strike is the first and final warning, if you don’t move on, the brown snake will bite you. Snakes don’t try and bite people, they either bite or they don’t. Their reflexes are much faster than ours and we could never dodge a striking snake. Snakes are reluctant to strike, one of the reasons being that they risk breaking a fang, and if they do that it can take some time for it to grow back, and they need that fang to inject venom into their prey. If you see a snake, just walk around it and you will not have a problem. If you step on a snake (more common with tiger snakes) it won’t matter what I say because you will jump very high! Chances are the
snake will jump equally as high but in the opposite direction. FOOTWEAR Gumboots, gumboots and gumboots. Seriously, a good quality set of gumboots is the perfect footwear for this type of fishing. They offer the best protection from the snakes, which is their most important role. Gumboots keep the grass seeds out of your socks and very importantly they do not shrink as they dry and cause blistering next time you wear them like leather work boots or runners will. I swear by Blundstone gumboots. They are great quality, nice and thick, last for years and usually around $70. All I do when I get home is sit them in the sun, and the next day they are right to wear again time and time over. Just be careful in deep water with your gumboots on as they can get a bit heavy once full of water. LURE CHOICE I use all three main types of lures when bank fishing for Murray cod: spinnerbaits, hardbody lures and surface poppers. Spinnerbaits tend to run
Shane Orr with his first Murray cod caught on a lure while walking the banks. The cod is not big, but it was enough to give Shane the ‘cod bug’ and he now finds himself catching cod from the bank regularly. I found the spinnerbait that Shane caught this cod on about half an hour earlier on a submerged log.