[shayne du]

I posted these already in the wrong area, basically gave a newly developed lure design to some friends who are doing research tagging on Murray Cod. Murray Cod are an Australian fresh water fish capable of reaching over a hundred pounds, these ones still have a few years ahead of them yet but are doing quite well after being restocked into this river system.

 

[Matt Newcombe]

Nice one Shayne - Your designs certainly doing the business.

 

[Dave Fitzpatrick]

Nice one Shane, great to see reports from sunnier climes its bloody freezing over here at the moment. Well done on catching on your own home made lures, they look good and I'm sure it made the catch even more rewarding.

 

[Dave Irving]

Nice one Shayne,
Looks like your lures were doing the business.
I love Murray Cod, they might not be as glamarous as some species, but they get pretty big
http://www.abc.net.au/water/stories/s1825337.htm
Check out the picture top right hand side of the page!!!
Imagine hooking that on one of Shayne's lures

 

[Bagpuss]

Shayne

I'm very envious of you fishing in shorts while we are suffering sub zero temperatures

 

[Tim Murphy]

That's quality Shayne. :clap: Well done! Nigel's right, we are all envious

 

[Tom Massey]

that's brilliant mate. I'm really pleased for you!

having a go at makin some lures myself, but i doubt they'll be as good as them ones!

 

[shayne du]

Saw a weather report showing the south of blighty covered in snow, surely thats not normal? If it makes you feel any better I helped take 30 indig kids fishing this morning and it blew a gale and dropped a fair bit of rain but the kids got on to a heap of fish and had a great time. Sorry no photos, it's a cultural thing.

Tom, go hard mate because you will have lures that the fish have never seen before, the joy of producing your own.

 

[Tom Massey]

yea, the bloody stuff's only just melted. what a pain in the arse!! all that cold water goin into the sea and scaring off the fish! It's the earliest in the year I remember there being significant snow.


cheers for that shane. it's a real inspiration!

 

[anselmo]

Stop it. You're making me homesick ;-)

 

[Mike Sullivan]

cracking lures there mate and doing the business by all accounts.

 

[Dr.Thomas k]

nice fish, look a little like our Zander in the ELbe, only different color...
Thomas

 

[Milan Marian]

Zander is quite weak compared to that fish, MC's are extremelly strong fighters, I like to fish for murray cod!

 

[Bahadir Sarica]

Nice one Shayne

 

[Nick Aldridge]

I read years ago about the Murray Cod and how they die off in the big dry you get from time to time. What once looked like permanent lakes dry up and you can see all these huge fish flapping in the mud. A couple of years ago I read a report on how the fish is becoming endangered becouse of the drought. Doesnt't look like that now of course you've re-entered the big wet.
Great stuff
Nick.

 

[shayne du]

Pretty amazing fish, and we as a nation have had a pretty good go at making them extinct with over fishing (set lines and even dynamite early in the piece
), removal of in water structure and riperian vegetation and then we try and take most of the needed river flows for crop irrigation. On top of all this some idiot introduced bloody carp which have bred like rabbits and futher bugger up the rivers. All that said though, they seem to be making a come back. (With a little help)

I've got a couple of other lures in development at the moment, a trial large format offshore lure is swimming around the reefs off nthn PNG as I type this, so I hope to have a couple more happy snaps for you soon.

 

[shayne du]

In the mean time here is another couple of our sweet water natives. This one is a Mary River Cod which occurs in a limited number of coastal streams and is closely related to the Murray Cod which occurs inland on the other side of the Great Dividing Mountain Range system.

 

[shayne du]

Here are some shots of an electrofisher in action chasing lung fish for tagging, they can breathe air for limited periods so are ok on deck for a while.

Apparently around 1900 some specimens were succesfully transported live to England using little more than wet hessian and water weeds.

These ones pictured are around the 90 - 100cm mark and the biggest I've seen is about 140 cm. Only an absolute mongrel targets this species for angling but occasionally they do appear as by catch.

 

[Tim Murphy]

Thanks Shayne, it's good of you to post pics of these 'exotics'.

 

[trev richardson]

Great report Shane. Good to see your success with home made lures they look very professional mate. Just one point can you wear an over coat and make it look as if it's very cold your end as there a lot of very jealous people over here and we still (despite some thinking otherwise:wink have a long way to go before we leave winter behind....:-D:-D:-D