No shortage of fish to be had in that corner of the world. The Ovens mainly has trout & redfin though there are a few murray cod caught further downstream from Wangaratta near Lake Mulwala. The usual trout lures & techniques work well so stock up on your rapalas & celtas. For redfin over there it's hard to go past the old faithful Hogback & Ondex spinners. Hard to find these two lures here in Perth but you will find them in almost every tackle shop & general store in Victoria. If you can find Rebel Crawfish lures, grab a couple, they are absolute dynamite on redfin. Soft plastics work great on trout & redfin. Bright colours for the reddies & natural colours for trout. A bit of red on any lure is always a good thing for redfin.

Lake Mulwala is Murray Cod heaven. There are literally thousands of dead standing trees spread right through the entire lake. Big rattling lures, 7 inch plastics & any large vibes work great jigged vertically in tight to the trees. Seriously deep diving lures like the biggest model Stumpjumpers & Manns 20+ & 30+ are great if you can get out for a troll. Large spinner baits are also very good & are a great option for cast & retrieve fishing in tight to the timber. Downsizing those same lures slightly puts you in with a good chance of some Yellowbelly (Golden Perch) to. I cannot stress enough the importance of getting your bait or lure in tight to the snags & working them as slowly as possible. 5 feet from a snag is not good enough, you want to be in as tight as possible, say 2ft or closer. Bang those lures into the snags if you can. Cod especially won't usually put in much effort to chase down a feed & they will be hard up on the timber so that's where you need your lure to be. Often you have to annoy a cod into having a go at your lure so put in a good 15-20 casts on each snag & try running your lures through on different angles at different depths. You usually need to run that lure right in front of a cods nose before it will have a go at it.

Bait is a good option if your shore bound. Try to get some scrub worms & put a few on a #2/0-5/0 suicide pattern hook with about 60cm of 30-80lb fluorocarbon leader to a swivel with a running sinker on the mainline. Live yabbies are by far my favourite bait for natives, big ones for cod, medium size for yellowbelly. Pin them through the last segment of the tail & send them into the snags. Cod can't resist them. It pays to lift your yabby bait up a meter or so every now & again to make sure it's not buried under a bit of timber where the fish can't find it. Some people remove the claws from yabbies before putting them on the hook as it makes them easier to handle & easier for the fish to swallow.

If your after a cod, think barra gear or a little heavier. 6-7ft 8-15kg rods & 8-20kg line are the standard.

Lake Dartmouth is just down the road from Wangaratta & holds heaps of good trout & more than a few solid redfin. There are also heaps of little streams in the area that can hold some stonking big trout. Don't discount a stream just because it's tiny, there are trophy size (3kg+) fish in many of them if you look hard enough.

Blackfish are not very common & I think are still on the endangered list. If you do get lucky enough to catch one please treat it very carefully & return it to the water in the best condition possible.

Above all be patient. Freshwater fishing is usually a lot slower than saltwater usually is so you really need to put in the time to reap the rewards. Find a good school of reddies though & you can be a fish a cast until you have caught the entire school.

Hope that helps.

 As a kid growing up and getting introduced to fishing in the creeks, rivers dams and lakes,  I found the red and yellow Dixon spinners to be among the best  for redfin, if you want to use lures other than that you can't beat the old worm. Agree with everything above comments. 

Good luck and have a good time.

Cheers guys!
Shimka thats a lifetime of freshwater advice there! can't thank you enough, will definitely be trying all of that.
Looks like I'll be packing the 1-3kg bream combo and the 8-15kg 7ft snapper combo for a go, a few soft plastics and pick up some of the local specialties from the local over there

Will have to update once I'm over there and let you guys know how I go

Only half my life Devhay. Spent my 1st 20 years fishing that region. Born & raised just down the road in Shepparton. If you get a chance to fish the Murray at Cobram do it. Genuine big cod country around there. Your snapper combo will be ideal & the little flicky obviously spot on for the trout, reddies & the smaller yellowbelly.

Yellowbelly are good on the chew at around the 2-3kg size, much bigger than that & they are rather fatty. Give it a try if you get one.