AUSTRALIA'S biggest native fish, the Murray cod, is the country's premier inland fish and now it's the centre of research by Charles Sturt University (CSU).
The only catch is, the work isn't being undertaken in the state's river system or the lab - it's all being done at local pubs.
CSU School of Environmental Science lecturer Paul Humphries and post-doctoral researchers Keller Kopf and Nicole McCasker are encouraging Murray-Darling Basin residents to visit their local pub and help build a list of trophy fish that could hold vital information about the river system.
"Stuffed cod displayed as trophy fish act as time capsules for the Murray-Darling Basin and are more than just cultural heritage; if there is a whole fish you have length, weight, location and date, which provide really important biological information about what was in the river at a particular point in time," Dr Humphries said.
"If we can find enough trophy fish we will be able to develop a timeline and map of the basin showing the health of the waterways," he said.
One of the best spots for Murray cod in the state is Yetman, near the NSW-Queensland border, where the local pub is aptly named the Codfish Hotel.
The hotel is home to a trophy of a 16 kilogram Murray cod caught by Geoff Ferguson in the McIntyre River at Yetman in 2012.
More than a few stuffed cod line the walls of the pub, some of them caught by local cod fisherman Todd Gaston.
"I've been here for 40 years; there's quite a few cod in the river and they range from fingerlings to 80-pounders," he said.
"There's definitely an art to landing them. My biggest was nearly four foot long (1.21 metres) and 38 pounds (17kg) and he took a bit of talking to to land."
Email details of pubs with stuffed cod to CSU