Murray cod chaser Colby Lesko has aired a recon mission across two unfamiliar western rivers that doubled as a primer on the limits of January cod fishing, finishing with a handful of small fish, several missed surface hits and a verdict on the inland-water calendar that anyone planning an autumn or winter trip should hear before they go.
Lesko launched the trip with no inside information and minimal expectations. "I've got no idea what's going to happen. Nobody's been fishing these spots I want to go fish," he said at the start of the drive. "I don't know what the water looks like. The flows look okay. So I'm just sending it."
The first river immediately proved the risk. Clarity was less than a foot, the wind made even drone footage impossible, and an entire evening of spinnerbait and trimmer casts at deep snags went without a touch. A second pre-dawn session in the same system was equally cold. He met another angler on the bank who confirmed there had been no surface hits, then made the call to drive several hours to a third option.
The new river ran clearer. After two full sessions of nothing, he and his mate Riley finally found fish in the heat of the afternoon. "Finally got a fish in the boat," Lesko said as he lifted a small cod that ate a hard body run tight to a snag. Riley hooked up on a spinnerbait moments later. "The floodgates are open. Here we go."
The "flood" lasted long enough for both anglers to land small cod and miss several more before the bite shut down again. A persistent run of surface hits over the next two evenings produced just one buff into the air, a snagged Lego head and a long string of misses. A clean evening on a humpback surface lure gave Riley one solid eat, with a second "probably a 70 cm one" coming off at the boat.
By day five, even the recon-style optimism had thinned. "Definitely a tougher trip," Lesko said. "We did still catch some fish but not the size we really wanted, but that's just the way it goes out west here. You either get on them and it's really good or sometimes you have trips like this and it's tough."
His post-mortem points to the calendar more than the gear. He fished a Samaki S12 732 BHMF paired with a Zing 300 baitcaster, 50 lb braid, 60 lb leader, hard bodies and a Trimmer on top, the same all-round combo he uses across the western system. The conditions, he says, were the variable. "It's January. I don't really like January or February. They're really high irrigation months, so that's when you get that dirtier water coming down from up higher due to the high flows. They generally switch the irrigation off about the 15th of May. That's when you get the really clear lower level of water."
That irrigation cut-off is the unglamorous takeaway for anyone planning a 2026 western Murray cod trip. Lesko's own annual recon cycle is built around it: scout new water in January and February when most spots are off, then come back when the irrigation taps close and the rivers clear. "Sometimes that means really good fishing. So it's all just part of it."
Which means the fish are still there. The window just isn't quite open yet.