Fly fishing the Murray and the Riverina

The Murray River is the border and the spine. Below the high country a chain of weirs and locks turns it into a string of long, slow pools, from the Hume to Tocumwal stretch around Lake Mulwala down past Torrumbarry, Robinvale and Mildura. Above it sits Lake Hume, a big border storage that is counted with Eildon and Blowering among the dams that built the reputation for chasing outsized golden perch.

North of the river is a web of channels. The Edward River runs down to the Wakool River, which carries on to the Murray. Gulpa Creek and Billabong Creek both feed the Edward, and Yanco Creek and Colombo Creek both run into the Billabong. Further north, the Murrumbidgee River flattens out below Burrinjuck through Gundagai and Wagga and crosses the plains to Balranald, and the Lachlan River, held back by Wyangala and a series of weirs, ends as a tributary of the Murrumbidgee.

On the Victorian side, Gunbower Creek runs into the Murray and is managed as a refuge for native fish. Victoria’s environmental water holder puts water down it to improve habitat for cod in particular, and the creek supplies fish to recolonise the waterways around it. Kangaroo Lake and Lake Boga are open lakes rather than rivers, and fish more like a redfin water with natives in the background.

Fly fishing here is snag fishing. Cod treat a big snag in a slow pool as home. Golden perch hang around the same timber but roam more, and move up onto shallower edges to feed as the water warms. The forage on record across these waters tells you what to tie on: bony bream, Australian smelt, gudgeons, hardyheads and Murray River rainbowfish, with Murray crayfish in the big rivers. A cod looking for a bony bream or a crayfish wants something bulky that pushes water. For golden perch, a pale baitfish pattern in size 4 to 8 does the job.

For cod, carry an 8 to 10 weight, a sinking or intermediate line and a short, stout leader. Cast past the snag, let the fly sink beside it, and bring it out slowly with long pauses. Most takes come as the fly first moves away from the wood, and a fish that gets back into it is usually gone, so keep the rod low and turn its head at once. After dark, a big surface fly worked slowly along a snag-lined bank is worth an hour. Murray cod in the timber covers the method in detail.

Golden perch often take on the drop. If one follows and will not eat, stop the fly dead rather than speeding it up. A dark Woolly Bugger crawled near the bottom is the workhorse, and on summer evenings a hopper left to sit against a grassy bank finds them on top. Carp cruise the shallow insides of bends and take a small weighted nymph if you keep your shadow off them. On the Victorian lakes, redfin are the dependable fish: they school, so when one hits a small streamer, cast straight back to the same spot.

Trout cod are on record in the Murray, the Murrumbidgee, the Lachlan and Gunbower Creek, and they look a lot like a small Murray cod. Learn the difference before your first trip.

If you have a boat or a kayak, start on the Edward or on Gunbower Creek, launch at a ramp on the access card and work the timber within reach of it. Without one, the Murray above and below Lake Mulwala is timbered cod and golden perch water, and it is the place to go when the lake itself is crowded over the summer school holidays. For a gentler first day, take a five weight to Lake Boga on a still summer morning and look for redfin along the edge; the VFA describes it as reachable in a two-wheel-drive car in any weather, with a concrete ramp and camping at the lake. Kangaroo Lake has had cod and golden perch stocked year after year, and its jetty gives you somewhere to start from the bank.

The lowland window is the warm half of the year, roughly November to April, when cod and golden perch are active in shallow water and willing to chase. Inside it, the edges of the day matter more than the month: first light, last light and the first hour of dark. Spring is redfin time on the lakes and golden perch time on the rivers and Lake Hume as the water warms. Autumn is a good bet for cod in low light while the water still holds its warmth. Winter is slow; fish deep and slow and expect few takes. DPIRD’s guides note that fishing for Murray crayfish is a popular winter pastime on the Murray and Murrumbidgee.

Check the gauge nearest the water you will stand beside. The Murray’s own page draws its flow from a station above Hume Weir, which says nothing about the lowland river, and a steady, clearing river after a rise fishes far better than one still coming up.

Seasons, closures, limits and licence requirements change, and on the border waters both states’ rules can matter; check NSW DPIRD’s current freshwater fishing rules and closures, and the Victorian Fisheries Authority’s Victorian Recreational Fishing Guide, before you fish.

Some of the banks are farmland. A line on the map is not access permission; the sites and ramps on each water’s card are places people reach the water, not a right to cross land, so ask where you are not sure whose ground you are on. Upstream, the South West Slopes page covers the Tumut and the Murrumbidgee’s trout country above Burrinjuck.