Although April isn’t my favourite time of the year to chase native fish, the average 25° to 30° days just seem to keep them firing and compared to the 40°+ times we had earlier this year, I cant complain.

These mild average days also make this a great time to go camping and most weekends I’m setting up my swag alongside one of the border region waterways.

Lake Hume is still fishing well if you enjoy catching plenty of small reddies around 200g to 300g mark. Consider yourself lucky if you are able to find a school holding fish worth bringing home for the table.

But there are still some reports of a couple of reddies around the 700g – monsters, if you ask me. Trolling is by far the best method, basically because buying bait is a waste of money from what I have seen in my last few trips with all the tiddlers around. Being able to upsize your lures usually separates the runt reddies from the ones worth eating.

More great news for native fish stocks in the river: Last month the local Jindera and Burrumbuttock fishing clubs successfully released another couple of thousand golden perch and Murray cod around the Twelve Mile between Albury and Howlong.

This area has been poached for years with illegal methods like nets and springers and without these local committees putting in the time and money, things would be looking pretty ordinary for the future. Good on you, guys, great work.

The fishing has been hard below Lake Hume in the Murray, mainly due to the high water levels and extremely fast currents. The water has been so quiet you could almost think the fish have been washed away.

Basically only anglers using baits such as grubs and yabbies around snags and willows who have been doing any good. There have been no reports of real monsters coming out but I did hear of a cod of around 11kg coming out from the Corowa area on a size one StumpJumper in hopper colour.

Upstream of Lake Hume has also slowed down. The water levels lately have been all over the place, rising strongly one week and then falling the week after. I think this has shut down the fish and unless the river stabilises, I can’t see the action picking up before the end of the season.

Still, with time and patience, they can be caught. Bait is always in with a chance but as for lures, things are really starting to slow down.

The author with a 70cm cod which took to a spinnerbait in the Murray above Lake Hume.