Steve Cooper is a notable fishing author and journalist that writes for several magazines and newspapers that include the Weekly Times and the Herald Sun
After a long day’s fishing on a southern river, there is nothing I like more than setting up my swag, building a campfire and yarning with my mates. It’s as Australian as wattle, billabongs and bunyips and you won’t find it on the Internet. As you chew the fat off the steak and the yellow flames of the campfire fade to red hot embers, your fellow members of the Crackatinnie club begin to yarn. It’s a priceless lifestyle, free to anyone who wants to partake. How fitting then that many of my most memorable campfire experiences have evolved during trips for Australia’s freshwater fishing icon, the Murray cod.
Developing an affinity for the cod was a slow learning experience, spanning more than 10 years. Along the way I met one shearer and then another, enjoying the camaraderie of campfire tales told with colourful language against a backdrop of flickering flames, eucalypts and water. It was as it should be – an Australian experience. Sometimes the learning was more fun than the fishing, making me more appreciative of the prize.
In October 2002, I spent several days at the Melbourne Fishing Tackle and 4wd Show. It was more of a social event than business as far as my involvement went, an opportunity to catch up with mates and make new contacts. There was a freckle-faced chap there, looking like he was straight out of the back blocks. His clothing comprised a worn Akubra hat, brown moleskins, blue Columbia shirt and boots; it was by-god shearer’s garb; the outfit looked a little out of place in the city but the wearer seemed at ease, walking about, meeting people and generally looking around.
This was Rod Mackenzie from the Mallee town on Manangatang. Rod had a colourful vocabulary to rival English comedian Billy Connelly in that sentences were not so much structured around the “F” word as moulded. Dinky dye shearing shed language that was inoffensive and accepted by those who have spent time in the shed. Rod didn’t care what people thought of his colourful language, and I like that in a man. Since then, I sometimes jokingly refer to Manangatang as translating from Aboriginal to mean hillbilly. But Rod is anything but a hillbilly. In fact he is one of the smartest anglers you are likely to spend time with in a boat – the language and garb are a front … I think.
In the first five minutes of conversation, Rod invited me to go cod fishing with him on the Murray River. As a lure, he produced a selection Murray cod photos that showed fish to about 40kg. It was enough. I said ‘yes’ and left it at that. Most readers know of the Murray cod and its icon-like standing among native freshwater species anglers. Call them greenfish or goodoo, Murray cod have a following of anglers who demonstrate a Jesuit-like fervour for the species. In those days big cod specialists were a rarity, harder to find than the truth in an election campaign. I wondered whether Rod could fulfil his promises.
The following January, during school holidays, my son Michael wanted to know when we were heading off and where. I had Rod’s telephone number and gave him a call and we arranged to meet at Robinvale on the Murray River. So there we were, Michael and I at our Robinvale meeting place. Rod was already there and he had brought along his farmer mate Gus Storer, as we needed an extra boat. Rod expressed surprised that I came. When asked why, he explained many fishing writers had been invited to go cod fishing with him, and that although most said ‘yes’ I was the first who showed! Mmmm … idiots.
In southern Australia, the Murray River ranks as one of the last bastions of freedom; a place where a man is still allowed to make camp without paying or signing a visitor’s book for the privilege. This wasn’t so much a trip as a swag and billy expedition; a cosmic experience where a wash was a swim in the river, and a nature walk was taken with a shovel in one hand and a roll of toilet paper in the other. Rod’s first tip for the trip was not to place a swag under any of the heavily knotted river gums; mine was to change your clothes every four days, even if you didn’t have to. We are civilised, after all.
Gus was a bit quirky about his clothes and would hang his shirts neatly inside his old 4wd Ute. At the same time, this affable bloke refused to pack equipment securely in his boat. Many times on that trip, as we travelled between river camps following Gus, I would have to stop the car to retrieve blankets, Esky lids and other paraphernalia as they blew out of his boat. Apart from knowing how to catch a big cod, Gus also happens to be the best camp cook I have come across and his camp oven meals are legend. I labelled these two anglers the Manangatang Cod Squad.
The fishing method was trolling. In those days, Rod had a Quintrex Explorer powered by an old Minn Kota electric. Unlike some of the flash looking cod boats run by the self-styled greenfish gurus, there was no electronic gadgetry like sounders and water temperature gauges. It was grassroots fishing and Rod used instinct rather than pixels to find cod and follow the profile of the river.
That first afternoon was nothing special with several small cod of about 3.5 kg making it to the boat. Rod was concerned that the river was dropping and we needed to get ahead of the fall, so we made tracks downstream for the next day’s fishing. The downstream move proved successful and we scored a cod on a people eater (purple) Stumpjumper. The fish was kept in the water; a set of scales attached to the net for weighing and the digital readout showed 11.4kg.
The method was simple enough. We were trolling; using baitcaster outfits with the reels spooled with 10kg braid. Because braid is thinner for breaking strain than conventional monofilament line, the lures run deeper. Rod handled a rod with the same deft skill as a shearing handpiece, actually feeling his way along the river with his lures, learning where the channels were and the location of deep snags.
Up river, against the current, big lures were worked. As we ran with the current, the lures were swapped for large bibbed, smaller bodied lures. Rod explained the idea was to run the lures as close to the bottom as possible, even if that meant sometimes bouncing them off the bottom. The reel was set on a strike tight drag and, while acknowledging the downside was the risk of the hook tearing out on hook-up, Rod said too many big fish rushed straight for the timber down deep. “You need stopping power to limit the amount of cord a cod can pull off your reel,” he said. That afternoon we scored two more cod of 9kg and 14kg.
Our tally of cod after four days was excellent. The cod ranged in size from the 50cm hero makers through to 19kg. In all, everyone caught cod, and at least eight topped 10kg. The future looks bright, very bright, for the southern strain of Murray cod – and bright for anglers too, sleeping under the stars beside the riverbank. Make no mistake; the hottest spot for a big Murray cod on any river is in Rod Mackenzie’s boat.
