Lures are a great way to capture native fish especially the mighty Murray cod. They are a more exciting to capture on lure and more skill is involved in capturing freshwater fish on lures rather than bait. Above is a Hard body lure and below is a Spinner bait. These two types of lures are the most commonly used in targeting the Murray cod and Golden perch and will catch most of the other fish in the Murray Darling System.
The hard body is a lure that can be casted or trolled behind a boat both techniques work although one will work on some days and the other will work on other days depending on many different things. The hard body above is called an Australian Crafted Invader, 120mm in the Forbes special colour. The Invader is just one of the many different styles of cod lures made by AC (Australian Crafted) This is a very effective lure to be trolled foe big cod because of the big bib which dives the lure down into the depths of the cod and the size of the lure itself which is the right size to get the attention of big cod. The other big name cod hard body lure makers are the Custom Crafted which also produces excellent cod lures. The Custom Crafted has a great range of different styles hard body lure. Hammerhead, Extractor, Fish Stik and Lumo Diver and KK are the styles of lures that they make and are all excellent value and quality.
The Spinner bait would have to be my favourite lure to use in the Murrumbidgee River because it gets the results and it is very versatile. There are many snags in the rivers and the cod love them. The cod sit underneath these logs and stay very close to their homes. They don't venture far to find their food they sit and wait for the food to come to them. So the reason these spinner baits are so great is that they can get right down alongside the logs, in front of a big cods mouth. The spinner bait is able to sink right alongside the log because of the weighted jig head. The blades create flash and vibration so the fish know that there is some sort of food. The skirt is the profile of the lure and makes it look like there is something good for the fish to eat because of the size. The plastic tail is to add an even bigger profile and to make the spinner bait look more realistic. The spinner bait doesn't give an impression of any of the baits that the fish would normally eat but for some reason they work and they work good.
There are many different brands and styles of spinner baits to buy to suit all sorts of areas and fish to target in the Murrumbidgee River. The good brands to buy from around this area are: Angler tec, Mudguts and Bassman Spinner baits. If you are looking at buying any type of lure for fishing the Murrumbidgee River just head out to Rod’s Custom Rods and they will point you in right direction.
If I were to head out fishing for the day I would have red and black spinner bait and a purple coloured one. I pick these colours because they seem to be good all rounder colours that will most often work. It doesn't really matter to much about the colour of the spinner bait, the most important thing is to get the spinner bait right alongside the log in the right spot and if the fish is hungry enough he should hammer it.
