Went out today to bait fish an area ive recently scoped out in the last month. The water had the most structure ive seen - while nice it frustratingly didnt matter too much as it was limited access to even within 15ft+ to the bank often requiring crawling on hands and knees, then after that battle the bank edges thenselves had very few fish able spots.
On these trips, only having my baitcaster and lures - all ive walked away with is being covered in sticks, leaves, spiderwebs, bruises, scratches and burning rash from an as yet unidentified plant i had to bash through + left a few lure decoration donations for the cod on their snags. Needing a break from that fun, even though i knew it could be really blustery, with the river higher and dirtier from the rain i still decided to give some bait rods and cheese a shot.
The water looked like watered down ice break, was running higher but not fast in my chosen spots and luckily both were out of the wind somehow. First spot spent about 3hrs at for a couple taps and one missed take. With half the available time gone, decided to move to a new location.
It was just as quiet with only 1 missed take in about 2.5hrs, but in the final 30m as the sun was starting to set, i was casting HBs as a last hope and all of a sudden, one the bait rods bends over and heads straight for the water. Picked it up and the fish had already snagged itself, gave some gentle pulls and it freed itself and could immediately tell it was a heavy fish with a few solid runs and how it held its ground.
Got it in, had to get in the river with shoes and pants to do so, but as soon as i got a glimpse of it i didnt really care about the wet shoes and pants knowing i needed to for the sake of landing the cod and supporting it as much as possible during the process.
A quick snap against my rod - so i could get a rough measure when i got home. Went 73cm and very fat. Was surprised at how silver it was and how soft the green speckle was. Dont know why, the cod ive caught and seen in the yarra have been very green frog in colour...can anybody weigh in on light vs dark cod colorings from the same water?
Nice fish for the yarra - its showing to be a healthy system, i hope that continues and those that fish it give it the respect and care it needs to continue.
Beat my previous cod PB from the yarra of 66cm a few years ago as a nice surprise bycatch when targeting carp. Still got to slog away at a yarra surface cod and another on lure - but the bait cod are a nice recharge between hard lure sessions.
Cheers, Chris