Fly fishing the Peel and Namoi

The rivers form one system. The Peel River comes down as a small stream past Nundle, where a weir splits it, and then into Chaffey Reservoir Dam, whose access sites cluster at Bowling Alley Point. Below the wall the Peel is a bigger, slower river. It runs through Tamworth and on to the Namoi, and more than eighty listed access sites line it, many of them travelling stock reserves.

The Namoi River is the main stem. Its gorge is in Warrabah National Park, where NSW National Parks runs a stone hut called Muluerindie above the river with steps down to the water. Downstream the Namoi passes a weir at Manilla and the wall of Lake Keepit, and keeps going west to the Barwon; its access list reaches as far as the boat ramp at Walgett. Split Rock Dam is the third storage, with one listed angler access site.

The Macdonald River is a Namoi tributary. Its access sites run past Bendemeer and Woolbrook, mostly road bridges and stock reserves.

Most of the district’s fly fishing is a streamer for natives. On the three dams it is structure fishing: the points and drop-offs, worked slowly with a big dark fly for cod and a smaller weighted one for golden perch. The stocking charts show cod and golden perch going into Keepit, Split Rock and Chaffey across recent seasons. Read that as fisheries kept up on purpose, not as a count of fish.

The Namoi gorge is different work. You walk and look, and cast only when you have seen a fish. The gorge reach is put at about 20 kilometres, the better part of two days end to end for an experienced walker, and the fishing is said to improve the further you walk from the usual starting point. A surface fly such as a Chernobyl Ant put well ahead of a cruising cod and left still is the approach. In a drought the gaps between fishable pools grow longer, but the pools that remain still hold cod.

On the Peel below Chaffey, where most of its cod records come from, fish the snags and deep bends with a Woolly Bugger on a sinking tip. Carp have more survey records on the Peel than any native, so expect them on the same fly.

The Macdonald is the trout water. Brown and rainbow trout are both recorded, along with Murray cod and river blackfish, and the plan is a dry-dropper through the runs with a hopper on grassy banks in summer.

If you have one summer weekend, walk into the Namoi gorge. Book the hut through National Parks, or start from the campground, and walk a good distance before your first serious cast.

If you want the easy version, go to Keepit in spring for golden perch. Launch at the ramp, run to the nearest point and count a small dark streamer down the edge. Keepit is reported to be among the eastern lakes that draw more anglers each spring.

For trout, go to the Macdonald above Bendemeer rather than the Peel. The Peel’s rainbows are a possibility; the Macdonald’s are on the record.

Spring belongs to golden perch on the dams as the water warms. Summer is the gorge, and the low light at each end of the day on the dams for cod. The gorge is said to fish in every season, but summer is the best of it. Autumn keeps the cod moving on the rivers, and the Macdonald’s browns get busier as the water cools.

Winter is slow. The perch go deep on the dams and want a fly held near the bottom. Check the gauges before any river trip: the Peel has them at Piallamore, Tamworth and Carroll Gap, and a river running high and brown is a day to fish a dam.

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

Much of the riverbank is grazing land, and the sites on each water’s access card are the public way in. On the Peel some of them need a four-wheel drive, and most carry the reserve’s own conditions. A line on the map is not access permission. Ask before you cross a fence.

Copeton, which supplies Tamworth’s town water, is on the New England page, and the Barwon, which the Namoi joins, is on the western rivers page.