Bass first. They are stocked into every dam on this page, and the trail guide describes them as aggressive feeders that take floating lures, which is all the encouragement a fly angler needs to start on the surface. Advancetown Lake gets the strongest praise: the guide counts Hinze Dam among the best bass waters in Australia, with fish to 40 cm and some over 50 cm, and suggests fishing among the trees or along the edges where weed grass and waterlilies grow. At Lake Maroon, after a long spell of stable water, the thick band of lilies has come back to its old line along the shore, and the bass are said to stay close to those edges rather than dropping off into deep water. Lake Moogerah has standing trees down one side and a gorge on the other.
Saratoga are the second fish. They have been stocked into Advancetown, Samsonvale, Somerset, Wivenhoe, Kurwongbah, Ewen Maddock, Cressbrook and Borumba, all well outside the species’ natural range in the Fitzroy Basin. The trail guide describes them as surface feeders that slip deeper under overhanging trees in the heat of the day, with a bony mouth that makes them hard to hook. At Borumba the method is to put a popper tight against a bottlebrush trunk or the outer line of the lily pads, give it a couple of short strips and let it sit. Bass sometimes take it first.
Golden perch, which locals call yellowbelly, are the spring fish at Wivenhoe, where the angler traffic picks up as they come on.
Silver perch are stocked into several of the dams too.
Mary River cod are stocked across most of the trail, and the guide calls them one of the few east coast freshwater cod species left.
The Mary River is the one moving water here.
Sooty grunter are reported to have been established for about a decade and are now widespread from below Tiaro to well upstream of Kenilworth, alongside bass and golden perch. One account found bass and sooties in shady pockets of deeper water under a steep, lightly timbered bank, and found that the spot mattered far more than the fly.