A new video from Victorian YouTuber Juz Adventures has landed, and it sits in a niche of Australian fishing content that quietly does more work than the polished trophy trips — invasive carp removal dressed up as a fishing session.
"This spot looks phenomenal," the angler said as he walked up to the water. "I know there's fish in here, but it's been a long time. Look at this. Does it get any better than this? Probably not."
The spot is a small, walked-in hole on a Melbourne creek, the kind of urban-fringe water most anglers drive past without a second look. For Juz, it is a bait factory — a place he raids for fresh European carp and occasional goldfish before a Murray cod mission on the Yarra, Goulburn or Murray rivers.
"I love using carp for bait for Murray cod," he said. "I like using chicken. I like using cheese. I like using yabbies, but the best bait is a hybrid, a crucian."
Fresh bait, he argued, is the single biggest variable in a serious cod trip. His preference is for carp, specifically the head, a detail he singled out on camera.
"Carp head, best bait. I do like using chunks or tails, but the head seems to get way more bites. And if you do have a carp head and you're bait fishing somewhere, why not chuck it on the hook and maybe get yourself that meter you've been looking for."
The session delivered the goods. A 50-centimetre carp came first — enough for a bait haul, more than he needed for the hole. He followed it up with a 58-centimetre fish right as he was packing up for the night.
"58 cm European carp. That is insane out of the smallest hole that I know. Crazy, crazy stuff. I thought I lost it multiple times. How's that? I'm on the board. Number two. I was about to pack up, get out of here. It's getting dark, getting cold. Rod buckles over and we're on."
"Not allowed to be released. They're invasive in Australia, so I got to kill it," he said, before flagging the one state where the rules differ. "New South Wales, as far as I know, is the only state in Australia where you're allowed to release them. In Victoria, it's illegal."
Carp are a catastrophic invasive in the Murray-Darling basin, widely blamed for water turbidity, native species decline and the destruction of spawning habitat. Juz pushed the angle hard in his sign-off.
"If you don't want them in there, you definitely don't want them in your wild rivers, creeks, lakes and anywhere that feeds into the main river system. So, all the tributaries and all the main rivers need to be cleaned out of carp and this is one way to do it."
The session also offered a small glimpse of what a single suburban creek actually holds.
"This creek is littered of goldfish," he said. "Upstream, I got a goldfish hole. Downstream, I got another goldfish hole. And this hole here, I know has goldfish."
For Victorian anglers juggling work and weekend cod ambitions, the video is a practical case study: a walked-in urban creek, a couple of rods, fresh bait on the way home, and two invasive fish removed from the system before dark. The trophy cod shot is still for another day. But the groundwork looks like this.