NEVER GIVE UP

Many fishermen I speak with believe that if bites are not instantaneous from the first line to hit the water, than the fish are not biting. I have been fishing many times where once the excitement of the first cast fades into the long wait between bites, negativity creeps in, and once this happens, attention to detail drops. Once you lose the positive energy generated by the anticipation of hooking a fish, your fishing system isn’t optimised, reducing your fish catching chances.

The ability to maintain positive is vital when trolling for native fish. Murray cod in particular, rarely come many metres away from their structure to attack a lure, preferring to lay in wait for an easier meal to swim past. Once your lure deviates from the strike zone (typically 30-100cm from the bottom) you are effectively out of the game. On those special days when the cod are in a feeding frenzy, just about any sort of lure, fished with reckless abandon, will take fish, but these days are rare and to be worshipped when they happen.

Fishing for murray cod in general is tough. Usually it is many hours between bites and apart from the basics (such as sharp hooks) you need to respect other factors in your favour so when that big cod decides to feed, your lure is in the strike zone.

There are many reasons for a lure being in the wrong place, but your lure commonly is removed from the strike zone due to the boat driver not paying attention to the bottom contour and either driving the boat into water that it too deep or too shallow for your lure selection. (This problem is made worse is unfamiliar waters).

The boat driver takes responsibility for relaying depth information back to the other anglers on the boat (if they cannot see the depth sounder), so they may reduce the depth of their lures by winding some line in, or by getting the lures to dive deeper by letting more line out. This way you can ‘drive’ your lure vertically through the water column, holding the strike zone for longer periods than if your lure was set at a specific depth. The same result can be achieved without a depth sounder by ‘feeling’ as the lure bumps the bottom and shortening the line accordingly, however a sounder makes the process simpler.

This trolling system is ideal when all fishermen are using lures capable of diving deeper than the maximum depth of water being fished. For example it’s not ideal to run a lure whose maximum depth is six metres when the deeper holes you plan to fish are ten metres. You need a lure that will dive to at least ten metres and preferably twelve so that you can easily find the strike zone and hold it by manipulating the length of line you have out.

It sounds simple on paper, but if you have a constantly changing depth (as in the larger navigable rivers) you will be working hard to keep your lure in the zone. The more you work your lure, the more fish you will catch. Conversely, once you neglect to adjust the lure depth to match the bottom contour, you reduce lure time in the ‘zone’. The end result is less bites and less fish.

Once your fishing system is working, the next key to consistently catch native fish, is to never give up. It may sound like a line from a corporate team-bonding workshop, but you need to have faith in your own ability, don’t worry about what others around you are doing (unless they are catching heaps), and just keep fishing hard. The results will follow.

A Lesson in Persistence

Burrinjuck Dam in late October was a picture of spring colour, with clear, rising water covering the grassy banks, and at 65% of capacity presented enormous fish catching opportunities. This glowing outlook was in stark contrast to the muddy puddle that presented through the last three years of drought.

The morning air was crisp as the Quintrex eased off the plane. My fishing partner, Dave Tinsley (Tinno) tied on a black Extractor as I slipped the electric motor into the water. I opted for my favourite yellow/black Hammerhead for the first trolling run of the day.

We decided to work the steep cliffs for the morning session, despite reports that golden perch were being caught in the shallower parts of the lake. After ten minutes our tactic was rewarded when Tinno’s Extractor was eaten by a very stubborn fish. The fish refused to surface, making several plunging runs, before we had colour on a very fat cod. At 66cm, and out of season, it was welcome by-catch and a cracking start to our weekend.

In the next two hours we encountered another two well conditioned cod at 48 and 56cm, before Tinno nailed our first golden perch of the weekend. At 45cm it was no monster, but it was a start.

As more of our fishing group arrived we boasted about our early success. We should have kept quiet, as we did not have another bite for ten hours. We weren’t doing anything different, it was just that the fish became less active as the sun rose. Later this day, as the sun dipped behind the mountains, the fish came on and we landed nine fish (both cod and golden perch) in a frantic one hour session.

During the ten hours of mind numbing boredom, we stayed true to our fishing system. We believed that the lures we were using and the water that we worked were appropriate and we just kept plugging away. When the fish decided to feed, we were in the right spot with the right lures. Had we given up and headed back to camp, we would have missed out on the hot bite.

The next day was an even tougher test of patience as the other boats in our group relayed fish captures consistently throughout the morning, yet Tinno and I from before light through to 3.30pm had not turned a reel. Tinno took the lack of fish to task and by 3.45pm he (with the help of his black extractor) had landed a 58cm golden, and a 58cm cod, whilst I chipped in by dropping two other fish. Tinno really hit his straps from here landing several golden’s over 50cm in rapid succession.

I needed to get a fish and went for a change in lure. I was trolling the deeper side of the boat (farthest away from the bank) and needed more depth to get down to the strike zone. I clipped on an AC ultra-deep Slim Invader in the carp pattern. This gave me the extra depth required and I was immediately into a hard running fish. Unfortunately the hooks didn’t stick, but I didn’t have to wait long as the lure was inhaled on the next rocky point. After three express runs, I coaxed a cod of about 75cm to the side of the boat, only to have the hooks pull as we reached for the net. Even though I didn’t get to pose for a photograph with either of these fish, it showed that the fishing system was working and all we had to do was persist.

Big Cod don’t come easy

Burrinjuck in the spring can be a very pleasant place to fish, with light winds and warm days making the wait between fish comfortable, but Western NSW is a different story.

Summer mornings on the Hay plain are clear and cool, however by mid morning the heat and flies are almost unbearable. In my previous Hay Weir article (FWF Issue #) I wrote of the fish that we caught, but I didn’t detail how difficult the conditions were. On Hag’s special day he caught a 110cm cod at 8.30am and we had our last bite by 9.00am. It wasn’t until 7.00pm that evening that we had another bite (mind you it was another 110cm cod).

For those long hours during the 40 degree day, covered in flies, we just kept working the deep water. I made sure that the boat was always positioned in the right part of the river and our lures were always in the strike zone. Hags complained that he always seem to have the sun in his eyes and that I always had the sun on my back, but despite my creative boat driving, he ended up being rewarded for our persistence. The big fish came, but we worked for it in difficult conditions.

On the opposing temperature scale, I was invited to fish with Rob Paxevanos and Rod Mackenzie on the Murray near Mildura. It was mid winter and we had to travel about forty minutes by boat each morning to get to the preferred fishing spots. The wind chill was excruciating speeding down the river at 60km/h. Given that we were frozen sitting on top of the water, the fish were never going to be easy.

We lucked upon two good cod at 90cm & 100cm on the first day, however a lone 70cm cod on day two and nothing on day three showed how difficult the fishing was. In those three days we fished daylight until dark, not stopping for anything. The footage on Fishing Australia looked fantastic, but didn’t tell the story of the hours invested to catch the fish.

Fish hard until your deadline is up, you never know when that next fish-of-a-lifetime is coming.

© Jamin Forbes January 2006