Big captures have been reported in particular from Lake Ginninderra and Lake Burley Griffin. The best technique is to walk the shoreline casting just a short distance to the edge of the weed beds. One fish means there's usually an entire school, so repeated casting should bring the fish up.

As each fish is caught the school becomes more active and the fish easier to catch. Captures of 30-40 fish are common and some anglers have reported up to 100 fish in a session.

Most of the fish are small, less than 20 centimetres, but larger specimens often can be found underneath the main school, so it pays to fish deeper from time to time. Fish of more than 40cm were reported from several locations in Burley Griffin, some from the deep water near Scrivener Dam and others from behind the National Museum and under Kings Avenue Bridge.

The most spectacular redfin fishing, however, has been at Googong Reservoir. Hordes of small fish are active along the shoreline and can be taken easily on bait or lure. Larger fish are out in deeper water and can be reached by boat, or from the shore in some locations.

The schools of larger fish are about 10 to 12 metres down and anglers drifting with bait or bobbing and trolling with lures usually can find the fish relatively quickly.

Some of the bags have been spectacular. One angler reported catching 30 fish over 40cm, with the best 44cm, trolling the hard-bodied deep diver Golden Child. Other big catches were made on bibless minnows, spoons, small spinnerbaits and Squidgies. Dark Atomic, Berkley and Zman grubs all caught good fish. The multi-hook Ice jigs from Smak and Nilsmaster also worked well. Drifting and bobbing with scrub worms accounted for some large fish.

Redfin are excellent table fish but for proper presentation should be scaled or filleted as soon as possible after capture. The preferred technique is to fillet the fish, remove the skin and rib bones and grill, steam or smoke the boneless fillet. Googong fish are particularly tasty.

Numerous captures of golden perch and Murray cod have been reported locally. They have been taken on bait, mostly yabbies and scrub worms, and on lures, especially spinnerbaits, deep diving minnows and bibless minnows. Best locations have been along the edges of weed beds in deep water in Burley Griffin and Ginninderra and particularly around schools of redfin. One angler had a spectacular day kayaking on Ginninderra, landing four Murray cod, seven golden perch and 66 redfin, all on lures.

Anglers deliberately targeting Lake Yerrabi to determine if there are still some Murray cod there were pleased to catch four cod to 77cm. This is refreshing news given the large numbers of cod that died from deoxygenation during 2014.

The good fishing at Burrinjuck continued this week, with excellent reports of golden perch and Murray cod on lure and bait. Good fish were taken from all sections of the lake, with especially good sized cod around Wade Island and the rocky shoreline of the Main Basin.

Top lures were Burrinjuck Specials and Jackals for golden perch and large spinnerbaits and deep divers for cod. Shore-based anglers reported good catches of golden perch on scrub worms, yabbies and shrimps at night at Woolgarlo and Good Hope.

The coast is crowded with holidayers casting a line, but seasoned anglers report little problem in finding bream, flathead, blackfish, mullet, garfish and bass.

For offshore anglers there were good flathead on 35-55m on sand and gravel with snapper and morwong on the rocky country. The best snapper, fish to seven kilograms, came from north of Batemans bay, with especially good catches off Durras and Ulladulla.

Bryan Pratt is a Canberra ecologist.