Lake Copeton Fishing for Murray Cod and Golden Perch

Drove with Beard for 16 hours for 10 hours fishing at Lake Inverell.

We had booked a day of guiding with Murray cod expert Josh Usher. Fortunately, he had the next day off so we exchange our day for two mornings, starting at 3:30am. We could see an amazing number of stars at the lake.

The first morning there were plenty of fish about and we marked about 20 large cod over a meter on the sidescan fish finder. The boat was in 7ft of water and the fish were on the bank side so they were in very shallow water under the cover of darkness.

Beard retrieving at sunrise. We were fishing 50lb braid on beautiful Wilson Venom rods.

Beard hooked the bottom (which was more action I saw).

Unfortunately we didn’t get any hits the entire morning.

The guiding finished at 7:30am and we were kicking ourselves for not bringing our fishing gear (we thought we’d be fishing with Josh the entire day and returning to Sydney the next). Josh very kindly loaned us a couple of rods and a box of lures.

Left to our own devices, we fished the Macintyre River near the caravan park in Inverell that morning. Very soon, Beard caught a very nice golden perch (also known as yellowbelly) on a 60mm Harima Mazzy vibe. It hit his lure on each of the previous two casts and he hooked up on the third.

Then I got a Murray cod.

After a nap, we went to Lake Inverell. I stupidly put a lure with three barbed trebles on my fleece jacket and it took two people, tape and a pair of pliers to unhook. Then I lost the lure I wanted to replace it with. Beard found it stuck to my fleece!

We saw this mother duck with its ducklings in the river below the dam.

Also fished the lake without success.

Went back to the Macintyre and after an hour of flogging, Beard picked up a cod.

Then I got a smaller perch which absolutely smashed the lure.

Next morning, went out with Josh again but this time we only saw 2 fish on the sounder. Again, didn’t get a touch. Here is Josh retreiving his Polycraft polyethylene boat.

On the way back, we stopped at the Goldfish Bowl. This is my favourite bakery and coffee shop in Armidale.

Although we would have liked a 135cm cod like this one that Josh caught, we did learn a lot from him and he’s a great guide. In a way, it is good that things were not that easy. I’ll try again soon, maybe take the boat up there for a week.