Lake Keepit is a stocked storage in New South Wales, and you come to it for golden perch and Murray cod on a streamer. One angling magazine puts Keepit on its list of eastern lakes that see more anglers each spring, and that season is the reason to drive.

The shape is simple: a dam holds back one body of still water, and the part that matters to you is its edge. Points, bays and whatever the current level has drowned are where the fish sit; the open middle is water you cross. There are two ways in, a boat ramp and a shore access site, and the access card names both. Neither changes how you fish; the ramp just lets you reach more shoreline.

The easy trip is golden perch in spring. Launch at the ramp, run to the nearest point, and count a small dark streamer down the edge before hopping it back slowly. No water-specific rule was found for the lake, so you fish under the state-wide NSW rules, which means reading the current NSW fishing guide for the licence, bag and size limits before you launch rather than at the ramp. In our experience this is the trip to start with, and a first-timer should.

The harder trip is the cod, in the warm months at first and last light. A big streamer on a sinking line, put tight against the structure and worked back with long pauses, is the approach. Read the current NSW fishing guide on Murray cod, including any seasonal rule, before you set a date.

Winter is the quiet option. In our experience the perch sit deeper and want a slower fly, and the cod are harder to move. Go if you are close, not if you are driving far.

Pick a spring weekend, check the storage level, and be on the water at first light.