Episode 395: Burrinjuck Dam Murray Cod With Daniel Webber

Dan’s Tips For Burrinjuck Murray Cod Fishing

• Burrinjuck Dam is notable for cod tending to hang in standing timber more so than other dams, even those that have plenty of standing timber.
• Burrinjuck is a huge storage with 4 public boat ramps, one at each of the major arms. During the winter period the main basin is the best option for anglers, especially at the present time with lake levels close to 100% and flood bringing dirty water to the arms.
• Despite their affinity for trees, the cod will move into shallow flats around the main basin during winter to feed up on carp and redfin. They’ll often retreat to standing timber in deeper water between feeds. Look for flats with standing timber nearby, standing timber on the flat, or laydowns on the flats for best results.
• Big cod make their own rules and don’t necessarily turn up where you think they should be. Usually when they’re on the flats they’re feeding and conditioning up for a false spawn.
• The food source for cod diminishes during winter when redfin and carp aren’t spawning so much, so the cod tend to be hungrier and are feeding on larger fish. During summer there can be so much bait that tempting a cod can be quite challenging.
• Dan likes to fish on a high barometer, but more importantly on a changing barometer, stable conditions don’t seem to trigger fish. He likes very still conditions, especially after dark, because it’s easier to reduce the sound of waves slapping on the boat.
• The best fishing strategy depends on conditions. If it’s still, Dan will fish well into the night, get a few hours sleep and then fish the pre-dawn until around 9 or 10 am, especially if it’s a bright, sunny morning. If it’s windy, he’ll avoid fishing at night and if it’s overcast, he finds that it’s worth fishing right through the day.
• The ratio of fish caught would be 10 fish at night or around dawn/dusk to every fish caught during daylight hours. Murray cod are a large fish and it’s easier for them to sneak up on bait during the hours of darkness.

Dan’s Murray Cod Fishing Tackle

• Cod fishing at Burrinjuck during the summer months is often about throwing spinnerbaits and chatterbaits, so you’ll get away with a shorter rod and smaller baitcast reel.
• During the winter it’s more about casting larger lures such as swimbaits. Dan’s custom swimbait rods tend to be more in the 7’6” range and he has one in particular that’s 8’ and rated to cast 6oz. He couples these rods with 300 size baitcast reels spooled with 50lb braid and finished the combo with as 60lb leader. If the water is clear he’ll drop down to 50lb leader.

Dan’s Top Murray Cod Fishing Lures

• An Ignite Cod Fury 220 soft plastic swimbait is a great lure that’s very versatile, comes in a lot of colours and can be fished at any time and on any structure. This lure has an internal weight and the line is threaded through it and tied to a 2/0 treble hook. More often than not, Dan will rig the lure on a jig head and will put a chin hook beneath. On the flats they are usually fished mid water to near the surface and simply slow rolled, sometimes with the occasional quicker turn of the reel handle to cause the lure to “flick”
• The Jackall Gantia is a great option that resembles redfin in size and profile and is deadly on cod when fishing timbered flats where redfin tend to congregate. Usually it’s worked mid-water in depths of no more than 5m but preferably from 1-4 metres. Once again the lure is essentially just slow rolled, but the occasional twitch of the reel handle to make it twitch can sometimes cause the strike.
• The Top Attack Swimbait or the Jackall Giganterel will come into their own later in winter when the fish are feeding on larger sized baitfish on the barren flats where carp get pushed into the shallows by cod. A slow roll is all that’s required to work this lure as cod on the flats are there to feed and the carp that this lure imitates tend to loll slowly around.