Metre Boof from the Goulburn!!!

[piscateur]

What an awesome specimen. well done and thanks for sharing.

[Boonanza]

I just saw this report now Will that is a fantastic effort mate I know how much you love this style of fishing and it is a great reward for all the miles you do. :nicefish: :thumbsup:

[Truedogz]

I know exactly what you mean. I hooked a 96cm one night on the kayak, in the upper Ovens River area.

It was almost pitch black, about 11pm, dead still and quiet. I had cast about twenty times at a snag that I was sure held fish, on the 21st cast he hit. It scared the absolute bejeezes out of me. It sounded like someone had thrown in an open fridge into the water - but no hookup. Next cast he did the same, but this time I had the hookup. I ended up having to back the kayak up to shallower water so I could get out and fight the beast landbased.

Everything you mentioned about the violence and noise etc. cant be described adequately, it's an experience that will never be forgotten. Like you said, "persistence is the key".

96 cm is a fantastic fish in that part of the Ovens. Downstream of Wang as you get closer to Mulwala there are more big fish in the metre class, but upstream of Wang 80 cm is a big fish. Well Done!

It scared you at night, well it scared me in daylight!! I had a high vantage point and saw the open mouth come up under the lure and the hit all in a split second. Actually, any cod over 60 cm makes a terrific sound, but a metre fish is incredible. I've caught barra over a metre, including on surface lures, and while the overall fight is better than a cod, and the leaping is sensational, I'm inclined to think that the ultimate freshwater experience in this country may be the hit and initial fight of a big cod on a surface lure in a river. Barra are overall more spectacular and harder to get in but the hit of a big cod is a shock to the system.

I'm glad I got that cod out of a river and not a lake like Mulwala or Eildon. I've caught big barra, trout, bass etc out of lakes and they are not a patch on their river cousins. I've taken cod up to 70 cm out of the Goulburn Weir and those captures along with videos of captures out of Mulwala make me think the same applies to cod. The river fish have less time to think and hit hard, and are better conditioned from the running water. The strike is a catastrophic event for the prey on top.

How much bigger so they grow?

That fish would have exceeded 50 pounds. They grow to at least four times that weight, possibly five times and a few hundred pounder fish are caught each year. Basically an average metre fish is just under 50 pounds, at 1.2 metres they are around 80 pounds.

Cheers

Truedogz

[4liters]

Wasn't there rumours of a 2m cod caught back in the day? When you see how fat the 1.2m cod get a 2m cod must be enormous. IIRC the study involved a lot of examining taxidermied cod in pubs along the Murray

[Truedogz]

Wasn't there rumours of a 2m cod caught back in the day?

The biggest cod for which there is physical proof is a plaster cast of a 1.8 m fish - from memory the fish was supposed to have weighed 180 pounds. I did a lot of the historical research on native fish some years ago. There is a current research project being done by Charles Sturt University on the preserved cod in pubs.

There is no doubt they got to 2 m, we know that a pro fisherman in South Australia got a big one well over 6 feet long:

https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/arti ... ry=Article

Cheers

Truedogz

[Mjerksen]

Great fish Will!
Those big cod have an absolutely unreal surface take. I hooked an estimated 120cm+ cod in the Yarra a couple of years ago on a surface lure around midnight, and it scared the absolute bejeesus out of me. Unfortunately the hooks pulled as I got it into shallow water, but I'll never forget the size of that fish.
Out of everyone I've met you probably have the most knowledge on fishing for these freshwater natives, a well deserved fish indeed!

Cheers, Mark

[smile0784]

How much bigger so they grow?

That fish would have exceeded 50 pounds. They grow to at least four times that weight, possibly five times and a few hundred pounder fish are caught each year. Basically an average metre fish is just under 50 pounds, at 1.2 metres they are around 80 pounds.

Cheers

Truedogz[/quote]

Truely impessive fish

[Truedogz]

Those big cod have an absolutely unreal surface take. I hooked an estimated 120cm+ cod in the Yarra a couple of years ago on a surface lure around midnight, and it scared the absolute bejeesus out of me. Unfortunately the hooks pulled as I got it into shallow water, but I'll never forget the size of that fish.

Thanks Mark and bad luck that you didn't get that fish in. I feel very privileged to have caught this fish. I have actually caught bigger cod with other methods but catching this one in daylight high up on the log where I could see the whole thing was amazing! I saw the mouth open, the huge boil, the tail thrashing - an indelible memory is a huge amount of foam on top of the water with the line peeling through it as the fish headed downwards. I was lucky I didn't lose it; once I got it back up I could see the single hook holding and played it VERY gently to the bank (while trying to figure out how to best get down off a log).

I was in Trelly's yesterday and a chap said it was only the second metre cod on the surface they had heard of coming out of the Goulburn. The fish are there, I just think that people aren't putting in the effort to get them. I've been getting enough cod off the top in daylight in a range of waters that I have removed nearly all of my sub-surface lures from my tackle box. I'd say getting cod off the top is about as hard as getting trout on dry flies = some days you will doughnut but most of the time under good conditions you will get one with effort.

I've had a few people question how certain I am that the fish was over a metre. I'll post this pic to clear this up. I have copied an image over the fish of the rod from a wrap down to a tear in the hand grip that is a metre to within a couple of mm, and drawn a line the same length perpendicular to the fish in red. That just reaches the top of the tail outlined in green. Added to that in yellow is the distance between two wraps that is nearly 40 mm. The extreme edge of the tail isn't clear in the pic but appears to be beyond that. There is no doubt it was over a metre, I'm safe in saying it was 103 cm and it probably was 105. I've gone out and bought a 120 cm brag mat for next time!

I couldn't get a 'selfie' with the fish as I was by myself and even if Davo had been with me I wouldn't have been keen on lifting it on a greasy river bank. My priority is always to get the fish back to the water asap. I've caught barra over a metre but rate this my greatest fishing experience for the sheer violence and thrill of the take. It wouldn't have detracted from the capture if the fish was less than a metre. This clip gives a very good indication of what this fish looked like:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CgJhqScItk8

As I have said with this method persistence is the key. Throw the rule book out, keep at it and you will be rewarded.

Best Wishes

Truedogz

[barra mick]

You only need to look ast the fish to tell its over a meter

[davek]

You only need to look ast the fish to tell its over a meter

Yes it's a very nice fish BM, definitely a metre plus fish, Will is certainly putting the effort in for these fish, cheers davo.