Fly fishing the Central West

Big storages and long rivers. The trout here are in the Orange dams and a few stretches of the upper rivers; everything else is native fish country, where a summer evening is worth more than a cold morning. The Central Tablelands are where the Macquarie forms from two trout streams above Bathurst. This page picks the river up as cod water and follows it west.

Three small waters within reach of Orange are the region’s trout fishing. Lake Canobolas, about ten kilometres out of town on Meadow Creek, is stocked with browns and rainbows and holds plenty of redfin; a Woolly Bugger on a sinking line in the cooler months is the fly approach. Gosling Creek Reservoir is a shallow town storage, about five metres at its deepest, with a fishing platform, stocked trout and natives, and local anglers fishing hoppers along the bank in summer. Spring Creek Reservoir is a council water-supply dam opened to anglers in 2024 and reached on foot through one gate on Lone Pine Avenue. It is a trial fishery of rainbow trout, golden perch and Murray cod.

South toward Blayney, Carcoar Lake on the Belubula River is deep and mostly about redfin, which are reportedly the commonest catch by a wide margin. Rainbows are stocked every season shown in the release record, and the natives under them are a trolling game more than a fly one.

The Cudgegong begins in Wollemi National Park above Dunns Swamp, runs past Rylstone, is cut by Lake Windamere, passes Mudgee and meets the Macquarie in Lake Burrendong. Trout are reported in the upper river around Rylstone and in some sections below Mudgee; golden perch and Murray cod are recorded too, and carp and redfin are plentiful in the lower reaches.

Each of the three lakes on it fishes differently. Dunns Swamp, Ganguddy to the park, is a narrow lake winding more than five kilometres up a sandstone canyon behind Kandos Weir, stocked with cod, golden perch and silver perch and fished from a canoe along the rock drop-offs. Windamere, about thirty kilometres south-east of Mudgee, has a reputation for trophy golden perch, with fish over sixty centimetres regularly caught, and it is a spring water for the fly. Burrendong is very large, with the Macquarie and the Cudgegong coming in as separate arms; the Macquarie arm is a long, narrow stretch of dead timber, and golden perch school in the drowned trees along the old riverbeds. The Murray cod in timber approach belongs here.

The Macquarie between Bathurst and Burrendong is a string of rocky pools that cod and golden perch push into from the dam, with sight-fishing for carp in clear water below Bathurst. Below the wall it carries on through Wellington and Dubbo and out to the Macquarie Marshes and the Barwon, the plains water of the Far West.

Wyangala Dam, about thirty kilometres from Cowra, catches the Lachlan and the Abercrombie and is rated one of the most productive fishing dams in the region. Read it by structure. Golden perch school around the sunken trunks in the drowned forests of the bays, while the big Murray cod hold on granite, the drowned boulders and rock piles below the tors. As the shallows warm through spring and summer, carp cruise the edges. A bank angler with a five-weight and a plain nymph can fill a day on those carp.

The Lachlan River below is a long inland river for cod and golden perch, both stocked, fished at snags on the outside of bends. Far to the west it passes Lake Cargelligo, which has had Murray cod and golden perch released into it in recent seasons. The Lachlan ends in the Murrumbidgee, and the river is also covered with the Murray and Riverina waters.

In spring, go to Windamere. From late August the water warms into the low teens and the golden perch move into the shallows, and on calm, clear days the big ones can be seen cruising the weed edges. Base yourself at Cudgegong Waters Park, the gated camping park south of the wall with a ramp (arrange access with the office before you arrive), fish the sunny bank nearest the ramp first, and keep a yabby pattern or a small baitfish fly close to the bank.

In summer, take a canoe to Dunns Swamp and fish big, weighted dark flies deep along the rock for cod, and a surface fly at dawn and dusk. If you have no boat, an evening on the Lachlan with a Woolly Bugger or a hopper tight to the timber is the simplest native-fish trip in the region.

In the cool months, the Orange dams are the trout water.

Spring belongs to the golden perch. They come up into Windamere’s shallows, and on Burrendong the natives gather in the arms before running up the rivers and creeks to spawn, which is why boats crowd the Macquarie arm near Mookerawa Waters Park. Summer is evenings and canoes, with grasshoppers blowing off the river banks. Through the warm months carp sit on the shallow edges at Burrendong and Wyangala for anyone with a small weighted nymph.

When the water cools, the perch sit deeper on Windamere’s timber and rocky points, and the stocked trout in the Orange dams become the better bet.

Seasons, closures, limits and licence requirements change; check NSW DPIRD’s current freshwater fishing rules and closures before you fish.

Most lakes here have a managed way in, usually a state park or holiday park with a ramp; Dunns Swamp has a NPWS campground and Spring Creek a single gate. The rivers are another matter. A line on the map is not access permission, so treat the banks of the Cudgegong, the Macquarie and the Lachlan as private unless a sign or the land manager says otherwise. Use formed public access, obey gates and signs, and ask before you cross a fence.