Riverina Fishing Report - 12 April

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Riverina Fishing Report
From the Fishers Mouth
12th April 2011

The cold wintery weather of the past week may have some thinking that it’s time to pack away the fishing gear for the season, but now is the time to fish our rivers.

Dropping water temperatures, low water levels and the fact that the Murrumbidgee has not been fished much in the past six months, equates to excellent fishing. Combined with the fact that the bardi moths are hatching and you have a unique time of year with reasonable weather and fish on the bite.

Both bait and lure fisherman are landing sizeable cod and in my tours I have also been landing golden perch. The golden perch captures are notable as in the past ten years they have become increasingly scarce, yet with the October and December floods, it seems that the river above Berembed Weir has regained a golden population.

Further south, Lake Mulwala is clearing up finally, but has yet to really fire up as it typically does in autumn. This is likely due to the fact that the weather conditions are far from ideal and with a few sunny days in a row; it will also join the Murrumbidgee as a fishing hot spot.

As the clean water from Blowering and Burrinjuck continues to filter downstream, the river will clear up further and the fish bite better, so barring further storms, the best fishing is still ahead of us.

With water levels lowered significantly in the past couple of weeks, extreme care should be taken when navigating the Murrumbidgee. Massive amounts of timber has fallen into the river and also the floods have relocated many logs from where they lay for decades, so once familiar waterways are now significantly altered.

Spending time to learn a section of river and where the hidden dangers lay can save a lot of money in damaged vessels and also avoid injury from collisions with unforeseen snags. Take care to identify riffle beds, sand bars and submerged logs so that you in the deepest water and driving at an appropriate speed for the conditions of the river.

Once you have identified a safe path through the snags, make sure that you maintain concentration at speed as a deviation from the planned route of a metre of less, can result in a long walk back to the car.