Home » Tournaments-and-Events » 2020 Lake Mulwala Cod Nationals

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Lake Mulwala Cod Nationals 2020

It's always an exciting event when a major tournament hits a milestone and the 2020 Lake Mulwala Cod Nationals had its 10th Anniversary this year.

The Cod Nats brings together most of the very best Lake Mulwala cod fishers over four days and five sessions to work out who will be crowned Champion Team and Champion Angler.

The event is unique in that anglers are encouraged, by way of bonus points, to use sponsor of the day lures, as well as being forced to use a number of different techniques as the organisers set particular lure style days throughout the tournament.

This year saw:

Day 1

Spinnerbait only day sponsored by Bassman Spinnerbaits

Day 2

Hardbody lure only day sponsored by Pimped Up Lures and Miller Lures

Day 3 Session 1

Swimbaits and plastic only session sponsored by Zerek Lures

Day 3 Session 2

Any sponsor lure session

Day 4

Any lure day sponsored by Gidgee Lures, Kingfisher Lures and Mud Guts Spinnerbaits.

This means for a team to win, they must be good at using a variety of lure styles and tactics to get their fish.

 

Conditions

No report on this year's Cod Nats would be complete without a quick rundown on the conditions.

They played a massive role in how anglers went about their work and impacted greatly on the event's numbers.

Basically, the water was dirty from some much-needed rain a week before the tournament. The main lake from about 1/3 of the way down was fine, but the top third of the lake and into the Ovens and Murray rivers was dirty.

This made fishing location decisions super important.

Added on top of this was a lake that was fishing tough. All the local teams were talking the fishing down pre-comp and their concerns were somewhat justified for the majority of the field.

 

Our Teams

This year, we had four teams representing our different brands.

Past winners Team Wilson (Ian and Matt Rogers) were in, Wilson Silva Storm (Vanessa Bennet and Dave Silva) were fishing again, Team Venom (Michael Haley and Anthony Pavlou) were backing up for the fourth year straight and Blade N Tails (Stephen Booth and Shane Banks) were teaming up for the 10th Anniversary comp.

 

Day 1

Spinnerbait day arrived and true to the predictions, it was a pretty tough day on the water.

But, as in any competition, the top teams had a plan and came up with the goods.

Team Wilson had a fantastic day coming in first place overall for the day while also catching the Big Fish of the Day on a Bassman Spinnerbait fished off the 8kg 7 foot Venom baitcaster matched to an ATC Combat Plus reel.

Blade N Tails managed to sneak into the Top 10 after Day 1 with a literal last cast legal fish, their first for the day after 6 sub-legal fish.

 

Day 2

Hardbody Day was next up and the fishing continued to be tough, really tough!

At the end of the day Team Wilson had slipped behind Black Widow to hold down second place and Blade N Tails had dropped out of the Top 10 into 11th overall. Boothy said it was the toughest day he could remember fishing on Lake Mulwala and he certainly was not alone in those thoughts.

One of the highlights saw Bryn Matthew land the eventual biggest fish of the tournament on a Pimped Up Lure fitted out with the sensational Mustad 3x strong 36329 Ultrapoint trebles and our SureCatch forged split rings. It was great to see these products hold up as Bryn said they literally locked up the drag and muscled the fish out of the snag with the electric motor!

To add to the fun of the day Team Wilson's Ian 'Painter' Rogers decided to test the water temperature out personally by falling in and found a Wet Paint sign at the event headquarters in his honour.

 

Day 3

Day 3 is the Venom Dash for Cash Day and it has two sessions where anglers are rewarded with bonus points for catching fish early.

Session 1 was sponsored by Zerek Lures and allowed anglers to use swimbaits and plastics to catch their cod.

Team Wilson did a great job in session 1 bringing home two legal fish to the weigh master. This gave the team some valuable points for the session.

Wilson Silva Storm had a good morning as well, catching a few fish on the newly released colours in the Zerek Flat Shad range to get them into the daily points. The biggest fish on a Zerek Lure was caught by Zac Jury on the Affinity Swimbait and this won Zac a $500 spending spree of Zerek Lures for his efforts.

Session 2 rolled around and the story of the session was Blade N Tails who had a little bit of trouble in session 1. The team had lost their main sounder, due to them breaking off the transducer in the morning session. They then ran out of battery power to the electric as the night before the battery charger shorted out their accommodation and they couldn't pump any charge into the batteries so they made a decision to troll on the main motor from the start line.

As the other teams raced off, Blade N tails tossed out their deep diving Pimped Up Lures and started trolling the channel right next to the start line. After about 10 minutes, Boothy said "We're too deep, we need to head to the channel edge or up on the flat" and as the turned the boat to head to the middle of the lake and the nearest flat, Boothy's Venom 6kg folded over!

This fish was a ripper and ended up being the Big Fish of the Day at a modest 84.1cm and helped the team into fourth place for the session. Once again the 3x strong 36329 Ultrapoint trebles from Mustad were the go to hooks for the lures used.

Team Wilson managed another legal fish in session 2 and after all the calculations were done, they managed to win the Venom Rods Dash for Cash Day! It was great to see one of our teams take out the day.

The win got Team Wilson to within 0.33 points of the leader, Black Widow (Thomas and Steve Pinter) and the final day fight was set between the two teams!

 

Day 4

The last day was any lure style day meaning anglers could pick their favourite lure style. It's was a nice way to finish but the 20-30 knot wind that was howling across the lake, almost every team ventured into the dirty water of the Ovens and Murray rivers.

After a tough day, Team Wilson only managed to score a sub legal fish and Black Widow dominated the day with three legal fish, propelling them to a comprehensive victory.

 

The Wash Up

From our point of view it was a great event with many highlights across the tournament.

We had Team Wilson come in second place overall and Blade N Tails finish in seventh place. Ian Rogers managed to finish in fourth place individually, Matt Rogers came in sixth and Stephen Booth held down eighth individually.

Add to these top 10 finishes the fact that three of the four Big Fish of the Day awards went to anglers using Venom rods - Ian Rogers with an 84 on Day 1 using the 8kg 7 foot Venom, Boothy on Day 3 with an 84 on the 6kg 7 foot Venom and Sunny Martins with a 76 on Day 4 using the Crankbait PE 2-4! We also had Kyle Dalrymple use the 8kg 7 footer to land an impressive 102 on the prefish day, so the Venom range preformed above and beyond.

The Mustad 3x Ultrapoint treble was also in elite company, with Kyle's 102cm monster, Bryn Matthew's 105cm competition Biggest Fish and Boothy's 84cm all being caught on lures rigged with these trebles. In a tough tournament, this shows just how important it is to have the right terminal tackle so you can make the most of your opportunities.

 

Till Next Year

After a super tough comp where every legal fish was like fishy gold, it was great to see so many of our product being used by the top level of anglers on Mulwala.

If you're fishing Mulwala, get in touch with the crew at Mulwala Fish Camp and Ski as they help run this event and have their fingers well and truly on the pulse of the lake.

 

Team Scores

Top 10