If you prefer to do most of your fishing during daylight hours (as most anglers including myself do) then May is a great month to fish Blowering Dam. Most species are at their most active from lunch to mid-afternoon, when the water is at its warmest.

There are also small window of opportunity at dawn and dusk but on a whole the best fishing is to be had in the middle of the day.

Most species can be successfully targeted this month at Blowering but the majority of anglers will be targeting the large schools of redfin.

Once a school is located, catching these deep holding fish can be simple. I prefer to use ice jigs, soft plastics, blades or lipless crankbaits but actively fishing with bait in the same areas also works a treat.

The yo-yo bait technique entails lifting your bait around a metre or so off the bottom then allowing it to drift back to the bottom before repeating the procedure. I like to let the bait to sit for around 20 seconds or so before repeating the lift-and-flutter but an almost constant lift and drop will certainly pick you up more fish then a bait that is sitting virtually motionless.

Anglers targeting Murray cod and golden perch don’t need to fish after dark to be rewarded with big fish at this time of year.

Natives, even the monsters that come out only after dark during the hotter months, can now be successfully targeted at any time of day.

These fish can be caught a number of ways but casting or trolling lures are my favourite methods and probably the most employed techniques at the lake.

Large profiled spinner baits, lipless crank baits, chatter baits, hard bodies or soft plastics all work and finding what style of lure the fish want on any given day is up to trial and error.

Colour can also be a key factor, particularly if the water is crystal clear, which it is most of the time at Blowering. So change colours regularly until you crack the code.

Big grubs or yabbies still account for the odd native at this time of year. Most natives are looking for a decent meal to keep them going through the lean times ahead in Winter so don’t be afraid to go big or even really big with your bait choices. The bigger it is, the better your chances are of hooking a nice native.

Although the trout can be few and far between at times, they are still worth targeting and those you do encounter are generally of a very good size.

Flatline trolling is probably the best way to target them but if you see fish rising and sipping in wind lanes or the backs of shallow bays, I recommend casting with plastics, spinners or lipless crankbaits.

Or you could get out the old fly rod and stick it to them. Be aggressive with your casting and slam down the fly as close to the fish as you can.

Fish that are actively feeding are much more easily enticed than those that aren’t and you often don’t really need to match the hatch to have success.

A lure or fly that is different from what the fish are eating often gets more attention than something that closely resembles what they’re eating, particularly if the food item is in massive numbers.

Those big hybrid carp in the lake are great fun to catch but are sometimes hard to entice. They are probably at their most susceptible from now to the end of Winter.

These fish seem to be most active after the sun goes down and can be caught a number of ways.

The most consistent technique is with lightly weighted worms or maggots. Maggots work best if you chuck a few handfuls out around the area you intend to place your bait. This berley will keep them feeding as long as you wish.

Carp are pigs and will just hang around and keep on sucking up the maggots so don’t be shy with your berley, chuck out heaps.

As a keen canoeist, I really look forward to this time of year, when the slow and low flows in the Murrumbidgee make for perfect canoeing.

Boat fishing is still possible but you are confined to much smaller sections of river due to the gravel bars and shallow rapids.

Whether you’re in a boat or a canoe, by far the best technique for big fish is to repeat cast with lures into the biggest and oldest snags you can find.

Spinnerbaits are the favoured lures for this style of fishing because they are less prone to snagging but bladed jigs like Chatterbaits, Rock’n’Runners, lipless crankbaits, soft plastics and big hardbodies will all still catch fish.

Bait anglers will also do well on the natives as the European carp slow down a little and allow the natives to get to your bait first.

Big bardi grubs are the gun bait for cod but shrimp and scrub worms will also be worth a shot, particularly if you’re after a few golden perch.