Recently my good friend Steven M and I ventured down to the Queensland/New South Wales border near Texas to fish the Dumeresq River for some natives, the mighty Murray Cod. A trip with a couple of trials, Steven with his new dual cab Ford Ranger and myself with my new Hobie Quest 11.
We decided early on in the week to do the trip over two days. Leave early Saturday Morning, get our last supplies, petrol, food and fishing gear at Warwick and then head straight to the river via Inglewood to fish what was left of the day. This would allow us to fish Sunday Morning and then come back to camp, pack up and leave for home. At Warwick we always stop at Tackle and Tusk, this is an awesome tackle shop, has all the best cod fishing lures and is incorporated with the BP service station so its a one stop on the way, as I said earlier Petrol, Food and last minute fishing gear.
Steven picked me up around six o'clock in the morning, loaded my Hobie Quest and gear and we were away on the journey. We had a good trip down, stopped in at Warwick, and roughly 4 1/2 hours later we were on the river fishing. Our usual launch spot was taken so we had to move slightly up river and drop into the river from a small ledge with a reasonably flat area nearby to roll out our swags to camp the night.
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In the hours we had in the day we ventured downstream fishing all the snags, what we look for is piles of timber, fallen trees, and longtime submerged logs. With the recent 2013 January Floods there was plenty of such structure and spots that we had recognised from past trips. We made our way past our normal put in spot and the campers there said hello saying the fishing had been very quiet as they had only caught a carp, but by the look of their set up they would have been bait fishermen for sure.
At first I was using my own lure, the Rag Tangle and later a Deep River McPerch, but either were getting me any strikes, Steven was getting some but no hook ups and if he did he was losing them as he brought the fish to the kayak. Steven is well and truly into making his own timber lures and he was using one of his Kattzz RR's lures.
We finally caught a Murray Cod each after a very slow fish wise on the water. Steven came upon a mid water snag, these can be something as small as just a single log lying in the water up to a massive root ball. But in this case in was just a few logs laying parallel to the bank with just a small section of timber exposed. Steven peppered the area with casts and after what seemed 20 to 30 casts he finally hooked on to a fish. One for Steven finally and what we thought at the time was a good starter for better things to come. While holding the fish for a photo Steven noticed that its belly seemed full and you could feel the shape of a recently consumed fish in there. So it just goes to show that even though this fish had a recent meal it was still looking for another meal. in this case Steven's Lure. After release of the fish Steven moved on to try a snag on the opposite bank. I worked the same snag Steven had caught his fish on from down river, spraying in over twenty odd casts in all areas of the snag to no avail. So I decided to move up river and try it from the other side. I had recently tied on a Garra Lure, Tera in Black/Red/Yellow, and my first cast to the same area I was on in an instant, the lure had just hit the water and I had just wound the handle of my Baitcaster once and I was hooked up, I was onto my only Murray Cod for the trip, a small fight and I had it netted, a photo and released it back to fight another day. Although my cod was a small model, it still strikes me at just how beautiful these fish are, they sure are an icon of Australian Freshwater Fishing.
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We decided early on in the week to do the trip over two days. Leave early Saturday Morning, get our last supplies, petrol, food and fishing gear at Warwick and then head straight to the river via Inglewood to fish what was left of the day. This would allow us to fish Sunday Morning and then come back to camp, pack up and leave for home. At Warwick we always stop at Tackle and Tusk, this is an awesome tackle shop, has all the best cod fishing lures and is incorporated with the BP service station so its a one stop on the way, as I said earlier Petrol, Food and last minute fishing gear.
Steven picked me up around six o'clock in the morning, loaded my Hobie Quest and gear and we were away on the journey. We had a good trip down, stopped in at Warwick, and roughly 4 1/2 hours later we were on the river fishing. Our usual launch spot was taken so we had to move slightly up river and drop into the river from a small ledge with a reasonably flat area nearby to roll out our swags to camp the night.
In the hours we had in the day we ventured downstream fishing all the snags, what we look for is piles of timber, fallen trees, and longtime submerged logs. With the recent 2013 January Floods there was plenty of such structure and spots that we had recognised from past trips. We made our way past our normal put in spot and the campers there said hello saying the fishing had been very quiet as they had only caught a carp, but by the look of their set up they would have been bait fishermen for sure.
At first I was using my own lure, the Rag Tangle and later a Deep River McPerch, but either were getting me any strikes, Steven was getting some but no hook ups and if he did he was losing them as he brought the fish to the kayak. Steven is well and truly into making his own timber lures and he was using one of his Kattzz RR's lures.
We finally caught a Murray Cod each after a very slow fish wise on the water. Steven came upon a mid water snag, these can be something as small as just a single log lying in the water up to a massive root ball. But in this case in was just a few logs laying parallel to the bank with just a small section of timber exposed. Steven peppered the area with casts and after what seemed 20 to 30 casts he finally hooked on to a fish. One for Steven finally and what we thought at the time was a good starter for better things to come. While holding the fish for a photo Steven noticed that its belly seemed full and you could feel the shape of a recently consumed fish in there. So it just goes to show that even though this fish had a recent meal it was still looking for another meal. in this case Steven's Lure. After release of the fish Steven moved on to try a snag on the opposite bank. I worked the same snag Steven had caught his fish on from down river, spraying in over twenty odd casts in all areas of the snag to no avail. So I decided to move up river and try it from the other side. I had recently tied on a Garra Lure, Tera in Black/Red/Yellow, and my first cast to the same area I was on in an instant, the lure had just hit the water and I had just wound the handle of my Baitcaster once and I was hooked up, I was onto my only Murray Cod for the trip, a small fight and I had it netted, a photo and released it back to fight another day. Although my cod was a small model, it still strikes me at just how beautiful these fish are, they sure are an icon of Australian Freshwater Fishing.
