The tournament zone provides anglers with some cracking spots to land that winning catch.  GoFish Nagambie ambassador and cod fishing genius Rhys Creed, give some insight into the best spots to target within the tournament zone.

The tournament area reaches from the Goulburn Weir and includes everything upstream to the junction with Hughes Creek, a massive 30kms upstream. All backwaters, billabongs, lagoons and creeks within this area are included in the competition zone. These areas include, Majors Creek system and Sandy Creek.

This waterway is an angler’s paradise with plenty of heavy timber, standing trees, overhanging structure, willow trees, thick weed beds and a river channel that provides the lake system with depths varying from half a metre down to 11m deep in some locations.

Minimal water flow makes for great fishing opportunities and allows for a range of different fishing styles including; bait, lure and even fly.

Here is the hot tip on some of the key areas to fish within the zone;

GOULBURN WEIR

Goulburn Weir is the largest expanse of water on the Nagambie Lakes system and it is loaded with standing timber… which means cod!

The main river channel snakes its way through to the weir wall with shallow flats stretching out either side of the channel. The big fish will reside in the river bed and move out onto the flats to feed during low light periods.

The best way to fish this area is to stay in the river channel and cast past the drop off and onto the shallows. Then retrieve your lures down over the edge and into the deeper water, hard bodies are the pick of the lures for this technique.

KIRWANS BRIDGE

This area is loaded with so many options, so much structure and great fishing opportunities.

Fishing around and underneath the old timber bridge is dynamite and is one of the best structures to fish in the entire river system. Golden Perch school up around the pylons and can be caught by trolling alongside and underneath the bridge. Casting lures at the bridge is also successful and big cod sit under the bridge in the river bed.

There is plenty of standing timber in the area with plenty of shallow edges, willows, deep section of river, standing tress and reeds.

DELLA ISLAND

Some of the best fishing is right on the edges of these channels. As you can see it is less than a metre of water on the flats and then it drops off into deep water. Small bait fish and prey will move onto the flats and then make their way back into the river channel… this is where the larger predatory fish like Murray Cod and Golden Perch will be sitting ready to ambush!

Put your lure in this zone and you will find fish!

MAJORS CREEK

This is a little hidden gem… a fishos paradise! Majors Creeks is loaded with great structure including; standing trees, back waters, weed beds, reedy edges, large fallen logs, overhanging trees and even lily pads.

Golden Perch love all this structure and will hang out close to the standing trees (especially the thinner twiggier trees), reedy edges and the spindly ends of fallen trees in this area. Throw out some smaller lures 1/2oz spinnerbaits, 50-70mm diving Hardbody lures and 60mm Lipless crankbaits.