Episode 600: Nagambie Murray Cod With Sunny Brislin-Martins and Caitlin

Sunny’s Nagambie Murray Cod Tips

• Nagambie is a unique fishing destination with its owns set of challenges. The lake is fed by Lake Eildon and is part of a major irrigation system. This leads to instability in both water level and flow and Murray Cod need time to adjust as conditions change. To be successful anglers must have a good understanding of cod behaviour and an ability to read and respond to the changing conditions.
• Nagambie is a relatively small body of water, and when conditions change, it affects the entire lake. Aside from water level and flow velocity, water temperature also plays a big part in how cod respond.
• During high flows and cold-water flushes, it is crucial to look for pockets of warmer water, which are usually found around flats, back eddies, and little bays where the flow isn’t directly impacting the area.
• Anglers can find warmer pockets of water by using a sounder to search for changes in water temperature. If an angler does not have access to a sounder, they can find the baitfish and work backward from there.
• Sunny mentioned that live sonar technology has taught him a lot about fish behaviour and has helped him become a better angler. It has taken the guesswork out of fishing and helped to birth a whole community of people making lures to adjust to the better understanding of cod behaviour.
• Being prepared is key to successful fishing. Having everything ready to go before hitting the water can mean the difference between wasting time and catching a lot of fish.
• It’s super important to keep mixing things up and changing lures and retrieves. Sunny feels that constantly switching lures rather than presenting the same lure that hasn’t been working is one of the biggest keys to his success. In particular, changing sink rates is important. To avoid wasted time on the water re-rigging, he’ll carry 4-6 rods all rigged with different lures and simply switch rods as needed.
• Persistence and avoiding worrying about what others are doing are two key things that can help anglers succeed. Focus on bettering yourself as an angler and enjoying the experience.

Tackle For Nagambie Murray Cod

• Sunny uses Diawa Commander baitcast rods almost exclusively because they do everything he needs them to do and he has a preference for cork grips. He uses a Commander Garganaut with straight through fluorocarbon for his big, heavy swimbaits and a second Garganaut with braid and leader for spinnerbaits. A Commander Duckfin is good for smaller swimbaits, hard bodies and topwater.
• Sunny uses Daiwa Lexus reels in 100 and 200 sizes, which unfortunately are no longer made. He’s found that these have the right retrieve ratios, heaps of drag for a small reel and are exactly what he needs for this style of fishing.

Sunny’s Murray Cod Lures

• A topwater lure such as a Koolabung, Barambah Lures Bidjiwong 200 or Jackall Pompadour. Usually, it’s the bigger cod that feed on the surface, so sizeable lures are required
• Perch Palms Hellion 200 or 250mm soft plastic swim baits. Sunny rigs these weedless for fishing weedbeds and feels that he gets a lot more bites being able to fish these areas, but the hookup rate suffers from the weedless presentation. Where possible, he prefers to rig soft plastic swimbaits on a standard jig head and fish the weed margins. This results in fouling of the hook by weed from time to time, but the hook set rate is much better.
• A large spinner bait from any of the major manufacturers is a must-have for cod fishers. They’re super versatile and can be safely cast into jog jams, rock bars and so on and won’t get hung up too often. By varying the retrieve they can be fished in deep or shallow water and can be worked slowly along the bottom or burned through the shallows. Most importantly, cod eat them.