The Stump Jumper has been a fixture of Australian Murray cod tackle boxes for more than three decades, but the smallest model in the range — the size one — has long lived in the shadow of its bigger brothers. In a video posted just hours before publication, Swiss-born Australian kayak angler Sonny set out to prove the size one Stump Jumper still earns its place when the water turns cold.
Sonny launched into a Victorian river on what he openly described as a borderline day. "It's autumn, almost winter, so it might be slow," he said before paddling out. "Could be hit and miss. I could end up with five fish. I can end up with just one or even zero."
The Stump Jumper has been an icon since the 1980s, sold across four sizes in twenty-plus colours, and Sonny rates it among the most respected hardbodies on the market. "I'm sure every angler in Australia has got a Stump Jumper in their tackle box," he told the camera, working a green and gold size one along submerged timber. "They cast good, they swim good, they're looking good, heaps of different colours, they are cheap."
The first fish came on his opening cast under a fallen tree. A 58cm Murray cod pinned itself on the side of the gills, hanging on long enough to be slid alongside the kayak. A second fish — 59 or 60cm — followed within minutes, then a third around 55cm, all on the same lure. Sonny was visibly surprised at how quickly the bite turned on. "They are on fire," he said, working steadily back upstream.
He took the opportunity to flag a safety point that often gets glossed over in kayak fishing content. "A fish doesn't worth you putting yourself in danger. So always secure the kayak, secure yourself first and the fish at the end," he advised. "They are beautiful fish. You need to take care of them, but you are more important than the fish."
The size one is the biggest in the Stump Jumper range, but Sonny noted it had not previously produced for him on natives. He had hooked golden perch on the size three before, but never a cod on the size one — until this trip. To round it out, he switched to trolling through a deeper pool on the way back to the ramp and pulled a 45cm yellowbelly on the same lure, confirming the size one trolls as well as it casts.
His on-water definition of a successful trip became a running joke through the session. The metric, by his telling, is catching fish, forgetting something on the way (he left a drink at the servo), and finding a lost lure in a snag. He ticked all three boxes, fishing a stranger's lost surface lure out of a snag on the way home.
His verdict on the size one Stump Jumper after a four-fish session in cold autumn water was unequivocal. "They cast good, they swim good, they're looking good, heaps of different colours, they are cheap," he repeated at the close. "I caught three cod and one yellow on it. So they definitely work."
For anglers second-guessing the largest model in a range built around smaller cod-and-perch profiles, the session is a useful counterweight. The fish were not monsters, but four legal natives on a single hardbody on a slow autumn day is the kind of result that keeps a lure in the tackle box for another generation.
