Murray cod action has been sensational at Blowering Dam, with good-sized fish already landed and plenty more to come this month, if previous years’ trends are anything to go by.

August is the last month of the Murray cod season, which leaves you just enough time to get your last cod fix for the year.

The best thing about Winter cod fishing is that they are probably at their most active in the middle of the day, when the water is warmest.

This is great for anglers who like a sleep-in or aren’t mad enough to target them at night. After dark can also be productive but with overnight temperatures freezing or below, you’d want to be very, very keen.

Bait fishing for cod can be a hit-and-miss affair at this time of year and anglers in the know prefer to take advantage of the cod’s territorial side by targeting them with oversized lures – if there is such a thing as oversized when chasing cod.

Lures really need to be at least 90mm long to have any chance of making a big cod strike out of territorial aggression. Smaller lures will also catch you the odd cod but only get hit if the fish is actually feeding and Murray cod can go a long time between feeds.

Big-profiled spinnerbaits with a thumping action are ideal for casting and trolling and it is hard to beat the big cod series from Murray River Spinnerbaits with their oversized, extra-deep-cut Colorado blades.

These massive blades throw out an unbelievable amount of vibration and the terminal components were made to cope with the riggers of big cod.

Big lipless crankbaits like the Jackall Doozers and the #3 Prism Murrins can also be cast or trolled with the same amount of success for cod.

Blowering has been kind to cod anglers over the past few months with many fish over the magic metre mark being landed. Let’s hope they continue to behave and stay on the chew for one more month.

Redfin have been the targets for most anglers over the past couple of months and although that will change this month, there will still be plenty of redfin on offer.

This time each year I have a ball jigging for larger redfin which school up in about 12m of water.

The lures of choice are the weird looking ice jigs that have an amazing action very similar to a shrimp or yabby trying to flee – which is why they work so well.

If the ice jigs aren’t working, you generally need to change to a noisy lipless crankbait as which can stir them into a feeding frenzy.

If neither of these techniques has worked, try the softly-softly approach of a Berkley Gulp, Slider grub or similar on a 1/2oz jig head retrieved very slowly with long pauses.

I cannot wait for this time of year because the fishing is as visual as you can get it at Blowering. Watching trophy-sized golden perch cruise around in the clear shallows looking for easy pickings gets my heart pumping.

Casting spinnerbaits and lipless crankbaits is my first choice but these fish will attack most lures. The key is to use something that doesn’t dive too deep because most of these fish are in 2m or less.

Shallow-running hardbodies are definitely worth a chuck and shallow-diving suspending lures work brilliantly and can turn on even the most shut-down fish.

Trolling is another way to target these fish at this time of year but it pays to stick very close to the bank and have your lure a long way back, especially if you don’t use an electric motor.

Bait fishing can be sensational because not just golden perch take advantage of the smorgasbord of food in the shallows – trout, Murray cod, big hybrid carp and even the odd redfin occasionally get game enough to come into the shallows for a feed.

Best baits at the moment are definitely soft baits like worms, grubs, maggots and PowerBait, depending on what species of fish you intend to target.