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Last chance at cod
  |  First Published: July 2010



The fishing at Blowering Dam so far this Winter has been great, to say the least, with some good-sized Murray cod being caught as well as countless redfin.

The action should continue this month and with the water rising, could even get better.

The Murray cod season closes at the end of August so this is your last chance to target them before the season ends.

Bait fishing for Murray cod in particular can be a bit of a hit-and-miss affair at Blowering, especially at this time of year. Anglers who understand this prefer to take advantage of the cod’s territorial side by trolling or casting oversized lures (if there is such a thing when chasing Murray cod).

Lures really need to be at least 90mm long to really have any chance of making a big cod strike out of territorial aggression.

Large-profile spinnerbaits with a thumping action are ideal for casting and trolling, as are the big lipless crankbaits like the Jackall Doozers, #3 Prism Murrins or the new Assassin Typhoons, which have been starting to carve them up in recent months.

Blowering has rewarded many a cod angler with ‘magic mark’ fish over the past couple of months and let’s hope this continues for one more month.

GOLDEN PERCH

Blowering’s golden perch usually start sunning themselves in the shallow weed beds this month and are well worth targeting, especially if you get into polaroiding fish in the shallows.

As the water is still cool, the best time to target the goldens is around noon to mid-afternoon, when the water is at its warmest.

If the fish are in an active mood they will hit anything cast or trolled past them but when they are not quite switched on or are constantly following but not hitting, then bass-style soft plastics might see you get in on some action.

There are many types of plastics on the market these days that do the job well but I like to stick to the 2” to 4” paddletail types in natural colours. These plastics have regularly helped me snare a few golden perch when all my usual offerings are getting refused.

The other gun lures to use when the goldens are not quite switched on are shallow-running suspending lures. Again, there are quite a few on the market these days and most will do the job so it is up to personal preference but stick to natural colours when picking your lures.

JOUNAMA DAM

The trout at Jounama Dam have been going off over the past couple of months with some very big fish caught and I expect this to continue this month.

There should also be some native action as well, with the resident golden perch starting to pop up around the grassy margins of the dam.

I spend quite a bit of time up at Jounama at this time of year for several reasons: Trout fishing is limited to lakes only; most other lakes (particularly the native lakes) are fairly quiet and finally, there are hardly ever any crowds at Jounama Dam, which is great.

Bait fishing in among the freshly flooded pockets of weed can be very rewarding but fly or lure fishing in these areas can be just as thrilling and these are my preferred techniques.

Fishing with large wet flies or nymphs usually brings a few trout undone and is probably the best way of hooking into one of the smart trophy trout this lake is famous for.

Casting shallow-running hardbodies in the shallows is another exciting way of working the lake and it is fairly common to spot fish through polarised sunnies before you cast to them.

Blind casting with sinking lures like Rapala CD3, CD5 and CD7 lures, small soft curl-tail or paddletail plastics or good old lipless crankbaits is another great way to get among them.

At this time of year I like lipless crankbaits because they work equally well on all species. I find all species happy to hit a lipless crankbait whereas, say, the Rapalas for example will catch you plenty of trout but might get rejected by a golden perch.

The lipless crankbaits might possibly scare the odd smaller trout but if that’s all that I miss out on by using these lures, I’m happy to deal with that as long as I’ve got a better chance of tangling with the larger fish in Jounama.

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