This month spells almost perfect conditions for fishing and camping in the greater Batlow area. The nights aren’t too cold just yet, the sun has certainly lost its midday bite, and add to this the lack of water skiers and jet skiers, you’re in for some great days on or near the water.

Blowering Dam has been a hive of activity with anglers travelling from far and wide to get amongst the sensational Murray cod action and, although the numbers have dropped off considerably, they are still certainly worth targeting.

Murray cod at this time of the year are best targeted with large spinnerbaits and deep diving lures, the bigger the better. Lures such as the 150mm AC Invaders are ideal but any lure over 90mm will put you in with a chance.

Best places to troll are the old river bed up around the top end of the dam and any rocky point or wall would be worth running over a few times. At night time the big Murray cod will often frequent the shallows in search of a good feed under the cover of darkness so once the sun goes down it often pays to head up into the shallows and throw around a few big lures. With big golden perch often doing the same thing as the cod, you just never know what is going to whack your lure while scouting around in the shallows.

Golden perch can also be caught in the same areas as Murray cod this time of the year but it pays to downsize your lures if you really want to target them specifically. Best lures to troll and cast for golden perch are the Balista Dyno 60 and 75, Trollcraft Double Downers, AC Slim Invaders, Stuckey lures and lipless crankbaits.

Over the last few months, redfin schools have been spread out all over the lake from the surface down to 100ft in depth, which can make it difficult to locate them at times. This month the majority of those smaller fish in the shallows will work their way out to the deep water with there ‘big’ mates as they start forming their massive pre spawn schools.

Once the fish are in pre spawn schools they can be easy to catch because they are so competitive. As the fish have almost all moved out to deeper water and fairly consistently hold at around the 25-70ft mark it makes it much easier to locate them.

Troll, cast, drift and/or use your sounder to find the schools then once a school is located drop plastics, ice jigs, blades, vibes or lipless crankbaits into them and jig up a storm. Bait fishos can do the same thing with worms or yabbies bobbed on a paternoster rig.

Whether you jig with bait or a lure it often pays to add a small 1-2” soft plastic or fly about 1m or so above your offering. This will give you a chance of bringing a couple up at a time instead of just one but it is also handy if fishing around weed as the plastic or fly will still be fishable if you happen to foul up your bottom offering.

By the time this article hits the shelves the Tumut River should be in low flow (fingers-crossed) making for some spectacular fishing. While it is in low flow, almost the entire river is accessible on foot that makes it both easy to fish and quite easy to walk to another spot if your favourite hole or section is being fished already or you think you have exhausted that hole.

Lure and fly selection in the flow doesn’t get much easier: if you’re casting lures all you need is a few spinners like Rooster Tails and Mepps Bugs and some little hardbodies like the Rapala CD and F range or IMA Sukaris. It also pays to stick to natural coloured lures in the low flows as the water is almost always crystal clear and a bright flashy lure can some times spook the fish, stick with natural rainbow and brown trout colours and you can’t go wrong.

If you’re fly fishing and would like to target fish with dries you will have to fish the first hour of daylight in the morning or the last hour of light before dark. Alternatively, if you want to catch fish all day long then it is hard to beat a small bead head nymph suspended about 1-3ft below an indicator or highly visible dry fly.

The Murrumbidgee should also be in low flow this month, which will make all the canoe enthusiasts very happy. And if it fishes the way it has all summer then there should be some cracking fishing to be had.

While the river is in low flow it is often hard to fish by boat, as you can only fish small stretches of river (only a few hundred metres or so) before you come to an unpassable shallow rock bar or fast rapid, not to mention trying to launch a boat. However, if fishing from a canoe or kayak you can successfully fish long stretches of river with relative ease.

Casting lures is really the only way to go for regular success during the low flows and it’s hard to beat the ever-reliable spinnerbait but on tough days it is also worth casting shallow running hardbodies, lipless crankbaits, chatterbaits, big paddle-tail soft plastics and even surface lures around to try and entice a strike. Giving them something slightly different to have a go at can sometimes be the key to success.

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It’s not just big Murray cod being caught at Blowering Dam. Joel Mortimer displays one of the many big golden perch (65cm)he and his mates caught while on a recent fishing trip.

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It doesn’t get much better than flyfishing the Tumut River when it is in low flow. There is a good chance of the Tumut River being in low flow this month so get your trout gear ready and get amongst some sensational trout.