The Murrumbidgee has been a sensational fishery in recent months and Old Man Creek isn’t too far behind.

Apart from four or five weeks of unfishable water, the rest of the time these waterways have been exceeding everyone’s expectations.

The Wagga region is well known for the sheer numbers of native fish but generally these are quite small. Until recently a 60cm Murray cod was a reasonably rare catch but this has changed lately, with 60cm-plus fish now plentiful throughout the system.

And more than a few metre-plus cod have generated real excitement.

Once the water subsides from the March rains we should see some spectacular fishing as the water begins to cool and more of these bigger specimens feed more aggressively.

If you’re fishing the Murrumbidgee or Old Man Creek over the next month concentrate on these big fish.

Trolling hardbodies like the 90mm or 120mm AC Invader will put you in with a good chance of hooking up. Best colours should include Forbes special, gold cod and anything with purple in it.

Focus your efforts on heavily timbered water at least 2.5m deep. If you’re casting spinnerbaits, you can’t go past the Mudguts range; they’re made locally and the colours are put together to suit local waters.

Lately both bright and dark spinnerbaits have been successful, it’s just a matter of finding what works on each particular day. The boys out at Tackleworld know these local waters and will fix you up with advice on the current trends.

This is the time things start to get exciting up in the mountains. The water starts to cool down and the fish get moving.

You should be able to fish almost any part of the lake and expect results. There are always exceptions so if you do find yourself struggling, make a move.

Buckenderra, Frying Pan, Cobrabald Bay and Providence flats have been fishing well over recent weeks.

Lure fishers can start to get excited as we move towards the spawning run. This is the time to break out the ‘aggression’ colours – orange, pink and red are three colours trout just love to smash when they’re all fired up.

Trolling or casting will produce results and as the weather and water cool we should be able to fish throughout the day without to many ‘dead spots’.

Soft plastics are a little different to the hardbodies. I haven’t found that ‘aggression’ colours are any more effective than the usual natural colours that we throw around.

The exception to this is the bright pink Berkley T-Tail; a few of my buddies have had some great success on this when the fish are angry.

Bait fishing in April is usually pretty good, with all baits taking their fair share. As usual PowerBait will always produce plenty of rainbows, just remember to rig it correctly so it floats up off the bottom. A variety of colours will also enable you to adapt to the conditions.

Fresh bait is always preferred for trophy browns. Mudeyes, if you can get them, scrub worms and bardi grubs are the best of these.

We are starting to see some great fly-fishing. You need to find the fish and to do that you need to go for a walk and cover plenty of water.

Mudeye patterns have been performing well, along with Woolly Buggers and the very reliable nymphs are hard to look past.