Page 74 - Bush 'n Beach Fishing mag

The days before a down jacket came into the author’s life.The layering system in action, which worked great, until it got really cold. One trip of being uncomfortable was all it took to get him looking for the right clothing.
TSetting up for cold weather cod fishing
HERE is some- NSW in winter. It’s even harder when thing a little Move ahead to more it’s still dark and you weird about the modern times and cod know it’s going to get
Fishing Gear
by STEPHEN BOOTH
anglers who chase big anglers cannot get colder as dawn ap-
green fish in the freez- er, but it’s an addictive time when the big fish come out to play.
We planned a trip to the cod mecca of Mul- wala in July, just to see what happened to the place in winter.
The water temper- ature, instead of the usual 28C was hover- ing around 12C, and we didn’t hold out much hope of a catch.
enough of fishing in cold weather.
proaches.
But still we go, and we
My first introduction to cold cod fishing was way, way back in about 1995.
The first frost and the big freeze of winter are considered prime times to get your personal best.
go with a passion that makes me question our sanity.
Let’s just say it so long ago I can’t remember the exact year.
With me were Adam Royter and Bradley Sissins, and we were wrapped in as many layers as we could find.
You need to remem- ber cold water was the enemy of all cod fish- ing at that stage.
In fact, if winter an- glers saw 12C for water temperature on their sounder, they may just say it was a bit warm!
I’ll talk mainly about lake fishing because for Queenslanders that’s the main access to cold weather cod fishing we have.
The author always takes a pair of fish-handling gloves to safely manage fish and will take them off so they don’t get wet and chewed up by fish. Page 74 – Bush ’n Beach Fishing, July 2020
But we failed to con- nect the dots and gave it away as it was seriously cold and, apart from the action, not much was happening in outback
But these days, there are heaps of options to * continued P75
The first day, we land- ed four fish and all at a better average size than we usually caught at Mulwala, and a further three the next day.
Dress to impress
In comparison to a couple of our summer trips, the results were fantastic.
It’s not easy getting out of a warm tent or a heated cabin on a lake’s edge for soft, old people like me, when the tem- perature gauge reads -4C.
In the old days, we jammed on as many pieces of clothing as we could and looked more like the Michelin Man than an angler going out to have some fun.
The purpose of this article is not to tell you how to cold weather cod fish, but to give you some tips and tricks that we have learnt on how to do this com- fortably.
Understanding the need to stay warm is the first step to fishing cold weather cod suc- cessfully.
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