The bottom end of the lake is fishing well, with reports of cod of all sizes coming in thick and fast. It seems the Main Arm is the place to fish.

There have been reports of two 1m+ cod in the past month, but I haven’t been able to track down pictures. I’m sure as the year goes on, if the water (hopefully) rises a bit there will be a lot of large cod caught right through winter and into spring. It’s worth remembering, there is no closed season on cod in Eildon anymore, I’m sure the locals will enjoy the influx of punters to our beautiful area.

I love fishing for cod at this time of year, and as the water level starts to rise and smaller fish come in to feed off the edges, the big cod will come right up in the water column.

Spinnerbaits come in to their own in the 5-15ft margin, and certainly don’t be afraid to get off your boat, cast out deep and retrieve up the bank. This bank fishing works a treat at this time of year.

Another technique worth trying is to throw deep diving hardbodies out and crank them into the bankside structure. It drives the cod nuts and gets them into feeding mode.

If you are fishing with a mate, one of you should fish the structure with a spinnerbait first, and one of you should fish immediately behind with a big hardbody. With this approach, the cod see a small school of baitfish (the spinnerbait) being chased by a larger fish (the hardbody) and the cod will take advantage of this and strike. I experienced one cod that picked up a mate’s lure, then had a crack at my spinnerbait as well, so I know it gets them excited!

You should really care about the health of the fish, so please get a bigger net if you don’t have one already. It’s so important to be able to release the fish in as good of condition as possible, so we can give them the best chance of survival.

On the trout front, the Big River is getting a flogging, but it always seems to produce the goods. Right now, it’s very low, so just be careful and mindful of other anglers on the water.

All things point to a good trout season, with good numbers of browns getting caught flatlining already.