The new murray cod fishing season had only been underway for a few days when Tamworth greengrocer Greg McLeod snagged his best ever big catch.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
The Farmer Bob’s bloke took off up the Namoi River last Thursday with his former workmate, Services club barman and fishing lure maker Michael Poulos, to fish their favorite spot just below the Warrabah National Park.
The day started well with Greg getting some action almost from the start.
“It’s a great sign when it comes to surface fishing, because it indicates that the fish are prepared to break the surface and have a go,” veteran fisherman Mr Poulos said.
“One fish exploded onto Greg’s lure, only to escape the grip of the ultra sharp hooks. We both encountered more action as we progressed further upstream. Plenty of strikes but nothing landed.”
Then they found a spot they both thought had plenty of potential.
Mr Poulos had just retrieved his lure when he heard that “deep BOOF” that denotes a big cod.
“The deeper the boof, the bigger the fish and this one was to take the cake,’” he said.
He caught a glimpse of it breaking the surface and yelled at Mr McLeod to hang on to the monster. It used every trick in the book to escape, he says, but he hung on, and on the first attempt to grip the fish, it shut its mouth, flicked its tail and created a bow wave “that would have sunk the Titanic”.
Attempt number two was more successful.
“But it was remarkable the way it was caught,” Mr Poulos said.
“It made one hell of a noise. They say murray cod is the big gob, and that’s right. It was like a shotgun going off.”
“Greg just stood there dumb founded and I had to snap him into action.We shot some footage and snapped off a few frames and then released it back into the water.”
It was the biggest fish Mr McLeod has ever caught, in nine years of casual fishing.
Mr Poulos says it’s easier to get big fish like it with sub-surface lures and surface lure fishing is a tough sport.
He’s caught cod of more than 50kg in the Murray River a few years ago, but personally, this is the biggest off-the-surface catch he’s been witness to.
The fish measured 105cm long, weighed about 25kg, and blew away Mr McLeod’s best effort ever for a cod caught off the surface of the water by a whopping 15cm.
He used one of Mr Poulos’ Codseeker surface lures to do it.
“It is an exceptional fish. You don’t get those every day; you’d be lucky to get one a year like that,” Poulos said.
Like the best fishermen, he won’t divulge just where the big cod fishing spot is, except to say a bit below the national park, but reckons there’s plenty of fish just like it in the whole Namoi system.
The murray cod fishing season goes from December 1 to August 31.