Before we get into the fishing here’s a bit about Nick Brown. I’m 20 years of age and have lived in Shepparton all my life. I grew up fishing the Broken River almost every night after school. I’m also the president of the River Rats Fishing Club.

I fish out of a Stacer 399 Proline Angler and I like to keep my fishing basic. I love casting lures around but I still enjoy bait fishing off the bank every now and then. Hopefully I’ll be able to provide an interesting and informative report – to help me do so, please feel free to send any reports and photos to the email address above.

The last month has been one of the quietest for a long time, with only a handful of people catching decent fish in the area. Nevertheless there are some huge Murray cod lurking in the Broken and Goulburn rivers and July is a great time to land one. Bigger hard-bodied lures or large spinnerbaits are my weapons of choice chasing these monsters. There are plenty of deep bends and massive snags in the Goulburn between the cemetery and the Mooroopna train bridge ­– this is where I would be fishing.

Over the past month I have fished the Broken and Goulburn rivers pretty hard. I have gone through my lure boxes and used almost all of them at least once, which is a enormous amount of lures thrown deep into the structure in the Broken and Goulburn rivers, hoping and praying they will get smashed by a solid cod or golden perch. The only luck I have been having is on the locally-made Catch spinnerbaits.

If you’ve been fishing the Goulburn in the past month with bait, don’t be fooled by all those little bites you are getting. Nine times out of ten they are annoying (but protected) silver perch. So if you find your supply of grubs is getting lower and lower, move spots because it can be a very expensive day for no results.

 Another great fishery just a short drive from the centre of town is the Main Eastern Channel. Most Tuesdays or Thursdays heading out to Dookie for football training, I stop at the Channel for a quick fish. The odd redfin has been taking a liking to small hard-bodied lures, worms and a shrimp-shaped wave worm soft plastic called the Tiki-Shrimp. I have had my best results along Old Dookie Road or Pine Lodge Road.

If you haven’t dusted off the cray pots yet, I suggest you do. With the water temperature dropping and the nights getting colder, these tasty crustaceans will be soon on the move. There is no need to travel too far because there is some great spots along the Goulburn and Broken Rivers for crays.

 CaptionFishing in the Shepparton has been a little quiet, but the author still caught this solid golden perch in the Goulburn River, just near its junction with the Broken River. A gold Catch spinnerbait was the successful lure.