Flooded margins at Newlyn Reservoir.
A couple of years of below average rainfall have had their impact on trout fishing in south-eastern Australia. As always in nature, these things aren’t binary; it’s not as simple as wet = good, dry = bad. Often, it’s more about adjusting for the effects of wet or dry conditions when making your fishing decisions, whether locations, tactics or both. There are volumes which could be written on this topic alone.
South-eastern Australia had been missing out... until recently.
Still, on balance, I’d choose a wet year over a dry year, simply because trout live in water, so the more of it (give or take) the better. And recently, the dial has swung back towards wetter for the first time in a while. Will it last? Who knows? Certainly not the climate forecasts. We humans love a crystal ball so we can tell whether to book a ski holiday, buy or sell shares, or how much crop to plant. But the only certainty about forecasters is how quick they’ll be to explain where it went wrong when it does. (I recall a certain Reserve Bank governor explaining how he never saw the Ukraine war coming! Coulda, woulda, shoulda…) Like it or not, when it comes to predicting the future, nothing much has changed since the fortune-tellers of the Middle Ages.
Newlyn Reservoir at the end of May...
So, we don’t know what’s coming, but we do know that, for most of Victoria and some of south-eastern NSW, we’ve recently banked some useful water in our lakes and streams.
... and today.
Some local numbers include Cosgrave Reservoir going from 39% on 29 June, to 100% (spilling) today. In the same week, Newlyn has jumped 30% to be 70%.
Happy Newlyn trout.
Even Tullaroop, traditionally a slow starter due to the amount of storage that needs to spill in the upper catchment before water gets there, has risen an impressive 7% in a week.
Cosgrove spilling. A week ago it was just 39%.
In the southwest, Wurdiboluc has already passed last year’s mark to be sitting on a comfortable (for July) 60%. I haven’t included the Grampians lakes because the weekly update hadn’t arrived at the time of posting, but you can lock in some big gains. Oh, and Eildon has come up 3.3% this week, or 110,000 megalitres.
Wurdi at almost 60%.
On the rivers, the story is similar, with strong flows (including moderate flooding on the Ovens and major flooding on the King) a good sign for the coming spring. History shows us that the solid populations of young wild trout which were present before the season’s close, will thrive in these conditions. Come on September!
Although this update is mainly about trout water, it doesn’t hurt that the same strong flows are also favouring estuary health, with most central and west coast systems getting a good winter flush, and fishing well. Glenelg-Hopkins CMA is reporting some systems are already higher than at any time in 2025.
A solid bream from an open and very healthy-looking Aire River estuary.
Yep, dry conditions aren’t all bad, but lots of rain at the right time is hard to beat for good flyfishing – both now and in coming months.
