Murray cod will eat almost anything that moves.

"They eat anything they can get their mouths around," says Taylor Hunt, manager of recreational fishing at the Victorian Fisheries Authority.

Water rats, birds, even the odd platypus.

One cod that swallowed a can of Solo became one of the VFA's biggest ever social media stories.

"If it moves across the river, a cod will eat it."

Half a century ago, that appetite was in danger of going quiet.

In the 1960s and 70s, scientists trawling the Murray-Darling Basin were pulling up only a handful of Murray cod and quietly asking whether Australia's largest freshwater fish was headed for extinction.

Today the story could hardly be more different.

A Victorian survey of more than 3500 Murray cod anglers found ratings of fishing have climbed steadily since the 1970s, and the species is now the best many can remember.

Nationally, Murray cod no longer meets the criteria to be a listed threatened species, and its international conservation status has been downgraded to "least concern".

"I regard Murray cod as the most iconic native fish species we've got," Dr Hunt said.

As an apex predator, the fish is essential to the health of the ecosystem, keeping the whole river in balance.

So what went wrong, and what turned it around?

The decline was a slow squeeze. Rivers were dammed, weirs built, and waterways regulated, cutting the spring flows that trigger spawning.

Snags, the fallen timber that cod call home, were hauled out for paddlesteamers.

Carp muddied the water and crowded out native forage fish.

On top of all of that came a century of over-harvest, back when cod were an essential food source for settlers and gold miners.

"There was this belief pre-1950s that they were limitless, you could fish them forever and they'd still be there," Dr Hunt said.

The recovery came from four big shifts.

Hatcheries learned to breed cod at scale, with Victoria now stocking about three million cod each year, reseeding waters where the fish had all but vanished.

Catchment managers began restoring flows and putting snags back in the rivers, providing habitats.

A 55-75cm slot limit has also been in place for the past decade, meaning the big breeders over 75cm must be returned.

Dr Hunt also said that anglers themselves have changed, swapping the Esky for catch-and-release.

"It wasn't just government-led," Dr Hunt said.

"Anglers themselves have promoted it. People know that you don’t need to take everything you catch, you can give it a kiss and let it go."

The turnaround is playing out in local waters too.

In the Goulburn River, the 2025 Native Fish Report Card recorded 60 Murray cod in its electrofishing survey, the biggest a solid 88cm and 13.4kg.

Nearby, at the VFA's Arcadia hatchery, the $20 million state investment and the largest fish farm in Australasia grows the cod the authority uses for stocking.

Dr Hunt said the benchmark is the Ovens, running clear and unregulated, where surveys count roughly 100 cod per 100 metres, without a single fish stocked.

Dr Hunt is careful to call it a recovery still under way, not a done deal, and said that carp remained the great unfinished job.

"If we could deal with carp, that'd take us to the next level," he said.

The VFA is raising awareness for action on carp, and Dr Hunt believes there is now a strong case to downgrade the cod's Victorian listing from endangered to vulnerable.

For a fish once feared lost, that would be quite a catch.

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Thursday, 20th February 2031

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