Camp 7 - Lake Mulwala

Our camp on the lake

I’ve had Lake Mulwala on my bucket list since some friends told us about the fantastic Murray Cod fishing there some years ago. Lake Mulwala is nestled between the twin towns of Yarrawonga and Mulwala on the Victorian/NSW border and is one of the major irrigation dams on the Murray River below the Hume Dam.

Moon rise on the lake

Mulwala is aboriginal for “lots of dead trees standing in water” – not really - but as the lake is full of thousands of drowned red river gums this would be an appropriate name. We stayed at a free camp called Kyffin’s  Reserve LINK HERE just outside Mulwala township – a little hard to find a level spot but with a little effort we set up within meters of the lake edge next to a little bay for the tinny. For info for fellow campers – there is a dump point and fresh town water tap at Owen Bridges Park only a few kilometers away from camping area on the edge of Mulwala township and firewood was easily found 8-9 K’s out on Tocumwal Road.

Linda's two nice cod

That’s enough for the background information - we were here to catch Murray Cod on spinner baits and hopefully surface lures. Day one saw me out a half hour before dawn (3 degrees) throwing small surface lures at the shallow water packed with sunken logs – and woo hoo – after two splashing hits a 52cm cod hit the landing net. Back home for a leisurely breakfast and then out casting spinner baits at the tree stumps with Linda. Linda caught two beautiful 59cm and 62cm cod and I caught another 53cm undersize cod (legal size is over 55cm and less than 75cm).

Even the old fella caught a cod

Day two saw me land a nice 64cm cod on a spinner bait and that was the last we caught for some days. We spent the next couple of days casting lure after lure with no result. Now for some maths - fishing seven hours a day for five days with a cast every 15 seconds x 2 fishermen equates to around 8000 casts over the 5 days fished. Total score for our visit were six cod with three legal keepers – so a lot of hard work put into those cod but worth every minute.

My "First Mate" Molly

We would recommend Kyffin Reserve as a free camp on beautiful Lake Mulwala – close to everything and you can even catch cod off the bank (if you remember to take a landing net). Gave the drone a few flights (bloody white corolla's tried to attack it) - video is HERE