The territory sits where the Murrumbidgee cuts north through a line of granite hills, with the Brindabella Range and Namadgi National Park filling the western half. Snow on the range feeds the Cotter, Paddys, Naas and Gudgenby rivers, which run cold and clear out of tussock marshland down to the big river. East of the range the country opens into the grazing and suburbs of the capital, and the Molonglo comes in from the New South Wales side to fill Lake Burley Griffin in the middle of the city.

The Murrumbidgee inside the territory is a corridor of reserves, with a walking track and a set of named access points from Casuarina Sands down through Kambah Pool and Pine Island to Point Hut Crossing, and a road crossing at Tharwa further south. Two water-supply offtakes draw from the river, at Angle Crossing and at Casuarina Sands, and the survey report notes that the sites below Point Hut also receive the city’s urban inflows.

Murray cod first, because they are what the region is known for. The territory’s 2023 survey took 304 fish from ten sites on the river and found cod at every one of them, with a large cohort of fish coming into maturity and into the legal take. Almost all the juveniles were found at Point Hut Crossing or above, which is worth knowing if you are wondering where the river breeds. Carp dominated the catch at every site, and golden perch turned up at more sites than the previous survey after two or three wet years reconnected the river to the populations downstream. One young Macquarie perch was found, upstream in New South Wales.

Cod fishing here is a drifting game. A guide who works the river says a pre-dawn start is a prerequisite on most cod days, and that early December with steady levels and a little rain is prime time. Big flies against the rock and timber, a strip strike, and the patience to keep casting through the quiet pools until the switch flips. Do not ignore the fast water; cod are not only a slow-water fish.

Golden perch are the everyday fish. They are in almost every permanent water in and around the territory, and the best of it is early spring in the impoundments, when the fish come up from the depths to feed hard all day along the weed edges and structure. The city lakes, Lake Burley Griffin chief among them, are stocked and carry goldens in numbers with the odd trophy cod. Googong Reservoir, the water supply just over the border, is fished under New South Wales law and needs a New South Wales licence, and a powered boat there needs a free territory permit.

Trout are the fishery nobody expects. Three big rivers, the Cotter, Paddys and the Naas, and a scatter of small dry-dropper streams and tiny creeks in Namadgi hold wild rainbows. The small streams came back after the wet seasons around 2021, and the creeks under Gibraltar Falls are the kind of water where you deliver a bow-and-arrow cast into a plunge pool and a fish that fits in your palm smashes it. This is not trophy water. It is plenty of shots at eager fish within an hour of the centre.

Australian bass are on the list too, but not in the territory: the coastal rivers within an hour and a half of the city hold them, and the trip is a summer one.

Start on the Murrumbidgee if you want the fish the region is known for, from one of the corridor’s marked access points, at first light, between November and April. Start on the Cotter if you want trout, and read its page first because the river is cut into closed, classified and open pieces. Start on Lake Burley Griffin if you have an hour after work.

The national Murray cod page carries the biology, the rainbow trout page the fish of the trout rivers, and the Australian Capital Territory hub the current authority links.

Spring is golden perch on the dam edges and heavy melt on the trout rivers; the trout season opens on the October long weekend and the first weeks are deep-nymph weather. Summer is the cod, from the first warm nights through to autumn, with early December rated the prime window, and the trout rivers dropping into dry-fly water with ants and hoppers. Autumn is deliberate fish on both kinds of water. Winter closes the trout rivers after the June long weekend and the cod are closed from September, so the late-winter fishing is goldens and carp in the lakes.

The ACT requires no recreational fishing licence in its public waters, but the Fisheries Act 2000 applies and the territory publishes its rules in an annual brochure. The territory’s waters are classed three ways. Prohibited Waters, where fishing is banned at all times, include the Cotter above Cotter Dam to Condor Creek with the reservoir, the Cotter and its catchment above Bendora with Bendora and Corin reservoirs, the Murrumbidgee from Angle Crossing down to the Gudgenby junction, the Tidbinbilla River inside its reserve, and the wetlands at Jerrabomberra. Trout Waters are the Gudgenby, Naas, Paddys and Orroral rivers and their catchments, Condor Creek, the Cotter between Bendora Dam and Condor Creek, and the Molonglo above the Queanbeyan junction; the the trout-water classification determines which rules apply. Everything else is Open Water.

Murray cod must not be targeted in Open Waters during the closed season, September to November, and any cod caught accidentally then goes back unharmed. Below Uriarra Crossing on the Murrumbidgee every cod goes back at any time of year. Seven species are totally protected and must be released and reported if caught: Macquarie perch, trout cod, silver perch and two-spined blackfish among them. Bag and size limits for cod, golden perch and trout are set in the current brochure rather than relying on numbers that change.

Access along the Murrumbidgee is through the river corridor’s marked sites, and elsewhere through formed public roads and the parks service’s listed areas. A line on the map is not permission. Small areas of some waterways are closed for land management, dam walls among them, and the parks service’s nature park finder is the place to check before you drive.