Lake Mulwala Report – April 2021

The fishing has really started to kick off now, the water is cooling down and the water clarity is quickly improving. The high barometric pressures for prolonged periods is helping find active fish. The fishing over the last few weeks has been nothing short of awesome, with plenty of big fish hitting the net as well as smaller fish. The water has become more stable, and the nice weather ha really switched the fish on.

This is by far the best the lake has fished in over 12 months with all techniques working well.

Dam Variables:

Water Level: Water level is just under 96%. The lake has settled now, and you can notice the difference in the stable conditions with more consistent bites. The water level may fluctuate a bit if we get a lot of rain in the Ovens River catchment, but conditions will be as good as it gets over this next month if it doesn’t receive too much rain.

Water Clarity: The water has improved significantly but you still need to search out the clearer water sections. The lower part of the lake, the middle and the northern side were the clearest areas but I haven’t travelled up the lake to check the clarity there but I guess it would be good there also as there is a lot of weed growing there which reduced flow and filters the water. The best clarity was around 1.5-2m which is pretty crazy for Lake Mulwala however after Easter and all the boat traffic I imagine this will change quickly and the lake will need a few days to settle again. Around the thick tall weed beds holds the best clarity.

Water Temperature: Water temperature has dropped and was around 18-19 degrees but after the last couple of warm days it got back up to 20-21 degrees in the shallower areas and this is really contributing to the good bite all through the lake especially for those smaller fish. It will continue to drop over the next few weeks after we get a bit of a cold snap and then this will really bring on the winter big cod techniques.

Recent Sessions on the Lake

The last couple of weeks seen me out on the water a lot, and this is one of the biggest factors to chasing big fish, you need to be there at the right time when they are hungry. Just before sunrise and just after sunset seen most the fish biting in those periods and if you were out there in the right spot for those times it was game on.

We had multiple sessions over the last few weeks that seen us land multiple fish over the magic metre and missed opportunities also. The lures that are working best are the IGNITE Cod Fury 220, it didn’t matter on the colour too much it just had to be in the right spot. We caught them on the new colours including Yellowbelly, Murray Cod and the Ghost White.

These fish were up in the water column and actively out hunting from 2-5 metres in depth. Most the fish were caught using the Garmin LiveScope however I managed a few casting at timber like normal, one of these fish was a 112 caught on the white fury rigged as a line through and ended up with a really good hook up. These lures are perfect to use when it is a bit shallower and lots of timber and weed around and you are able to run your lure through the water column up fairly high to avoid snags.

The fish were caught all through the lake from the bottom through the middle and on the northern side. Another technique that has been working well is just trolling through the timber with hardbodies in around 3-4 metres, this is a dynamite technique this time of year as you cover a lot of water and could catch a fish any size from 45cm to a metre plus. The best lures for this are around 80mm all the way through to 130mm, that dive to around 4m. Oargees, Stumpjumpers and White Crows have been working well and again all colours are working, purple or black is one that always works well.

Predictions for the Month of January

With the water cooling down the fish are now moving to the shallower areas chasing bait as they do through the wintertime. This is my favourite time of year to target big cod and fishing the shallower areas in the prime time with surface lures, swimbaits or big soft plastics will work best. The weed is getting very thick and if you are able to fish around it effectively you will find a lot of fish as they hang around the weed where a lot of the bait hides away. There are no real key areas to fish during this time as the lake has big fish scattered everywhere you just need to find a good area with timber, weed and bait and the big cod won’t be far away.

The lures I will be throwing are the big Thirsty Paddlers or Clunk Rats, Bassman Mumblers and surface crawlers, Jackall Gigantrels and IGNITE Cod Fury’s, both small and larger sizes. There will be a lot of fish caught around this easter long weekend and the following weeks and should only get better through the end of this month if this weather stays stable. I wouldn’t be rushing here straight after the long weekend as it has already got busy and chopped up and dirty. There is a lot of weed floating around so you will need to find areas away from the floating weed, the northern side or the top end of the lake in the everglades will fish the best as you can get away from boat traffic and floating weed, the fish will be up hunting the shallows in these areas.

One last Tip: the next few months is big cod time, use big lures such as the 220mm Cod Fury’s, Jackall Gigantarel’s or any other big swimbaits and you will get rewarded.

Hope to see you out there, Cheers Jack