Bait fishing in the region
Bait is a very effective way of catching every species of fish. If you want to go out to a waterway in the Wagga area and catch any type and size of fish I would recommend bait fishing. Depending on what you want to catch there are many choices of bait to cover the species of fish that you want to catch. You will catch all of the fish if you have the right bait in the right spot at the right time, and there are many types of bait to choose from to catch these fish, they include:
Bardi Grubs- are the top bait for Murray Cod. The bardi grub is the larvae of the "goat moth", and is found under big gum trees that have over hanging branches. A grub wire and shovel is needed to capture them but once you have found them and know what you are doing you should be able to catch them fairly easy. The Murray cod cannot resist a big fat juicy bardi grub and if it finds one it will probably have no hesitation to nail it. A bardi will catch you all sizes of Murray cod depending on the size of the bardi. If you want to catch a big Cod its simple use a big bardi.
Freshwater Shrimp- are another excellent bait to catch all freshwater species with the Golden perch having it as one of their top foods. The freshwater shrimp can be catch in a shrimp trap using soap as bait. You can also use fish or meat as bait but I would recommend using aniseed soap. These crustaceans hang around snags, reeds, willows or other structures. They are caught through the summer time when the water is at a warm temperature and the shrimp are active. It is not unusual to check the pot every hour and it having 20 shrimp in the pot but some days it be even hard to find something small. The best way to use the shrimp is to put 2 on the one hook at once. Hook them through the tail so they can still flick around and face them towards each other so they fight. The fish will pick up these vibrations from the fighting shrimp and will increase your chances of catching a fish. Also another good way to hook them is to put a shrimp on and add a big scrub worm to the hook. This is called a cocktail and is a great presentation and is hard for a fish to resist.
Yabbies- are another all rounder bait that will catch you all of the species that live in our area. The yabby is very effective just hooked by the tail and bobbed up and down on a jigging rig. This can produce big cod when using this technique next to a big log. You can also use the whole yabby like that and let it sit on the bottom and crawl around but if you are in a snaggy environment it’s not a good idea. Yabby tails are one of the most effective where they catch all sizes of fish. The other method is called the spider yabby; you take the head off the yabby but leave the body and tail. Then you peel all the shell off the yabby and leave the legs on. This is ideal bait for small cod, yellow belly, redfin, carp and many more of the smaller fish that inhabit our waterways. So I would defiantly consider taking them with you on your next bait fishing trip to the river.
Scrub worms- are an excellent all rounder bait to catch every fish in the Wagga region. If you want to go out to catch a fish I would defiantly taking a punnet of scrub worms. Most of the time when nothing else is working the scrubbies will. They are a lot bigger than normal worms and are noticed more by the bigger fish because of their size and the bigger fish would rather it more than a small garden worm. A big juicy scrubbie is very successful bait and it accounts for a lot of fish that I have captured in the river system.
Garden Worms- are reliable and cheap bait because they can be found rather than bought. They can be found in most gardens and in the well looked after ones you can usually get heaps of worms out of them. The worms are great if you are a family just going to have a fish and hoping to catch something no matter of the size worms are the way to go. The fish you will catch on worms may be small but are a lot of fun and you usually pull in a fair few small fish in a day’s fishing with Garden worms. I always make sure that I have garden worms that I have dug out of the garden on me for every bait fishing trip because they are sometimes the difference between a fish and no fish.
Cheese- is another good bait to have on you. It catches nice size cod. When using cheese just buy them in big blocks of any brand and cut them up into whatever sizes that you need. A size that fits the hook would be best. Cheese is well worth a go and is a good extra bait to have.
Bread- is great bait if you are just purposely targeting the Carp. Just take a piece of the slice of bread (size that will fit on the hook) mould it into like a doughy ball and put it on the hook.
Corn- is the other bait that I would take out when I am targeting Carp. Buy a tin of corn (preferably a ring pull so you can open it when you are out fishing) and just thread the corn kernels onto the hook depending on your hook size as to how many you will get on. I usually out about 3 corn kernels on at once and it seems to do the job.
