Fly fishing Victoria's Central Highlands

Grazing country with forest in the patches the farms left, and a lot of water held back behind walls for the towns and the irrigators. The VFA’s Loddon basin guide counts three large reservoirs on the river and many smaller ones, and between them they fish mostly for redfin, golden perch and both trouts.

What that means for a fly angler is that the edge moves. Cairn Curran’s level falls ahead of a late-winter and spring refill, so its shoreline is somewhere different from one trip to the next, and the fishing follows it. Read the bank you find, not the one you remember.

Ballarat. Lake Wendouree is a shallow, medium-sized lake in the city, mostly around a metre and a half deep, stocked with brown and rainbow trout and best known for its spring and autumn mayfly hatches. A walking track and Wendouree Parade loop the whole shore. The VFA’s basin guide rates it a good lake at times for both trouts and is frank that angling success fluctuates.

Daylesford. Hepburn Lagoon, a short drive west of town, looks like a plain round bowl in farmland from the car park and turns out to have weed beds and grassy bays, and rocky points between them, once you walk it, which you can, all the way round. Wombat Creek Dam is a small water-supply lake in the forest, sheltered from the wind, with very good midge hatches on calm days and trout that do not usually grow large. Newlyn Reservoir, between Daylesford and Creswick, has grassy, rocky and willowed shores, and the VFA’s Loddon basin guide lists it among that basin’s best waters for brown trout. All three are stocked with brown and rainbow trout.

Castlemaine and Bendigo. Cairn Curran, a big irrigation storage on the Loddon west of Castlemaine, is the mixed fishery: brown trout, golden perch and Murray cod have all been stocked over many seasons. Kennington Reservoir in Greater Bendigo is small, stocked with rainbow trout year after year, and the VFA’s guide counts it among its Premier Lakes, the stocked waters it sets up for families and new anglers.

The river. The Coliban is the exception, a small stream of wild brown trout that runs from forest into farmland above Upper Coliban Reservoir, a creek below Trentham Falls and slower and flatter as it nears the reservoir.

On the lakes, the edge is the fishery. Walk slowly, look before you cast, and work the weed beds, points and timber rather than the open middle. A floating line and a long leader cover most days; an intermediate helps when fish sit a little deeper. When nothing is moving, a small streamer, wet fly or nymph fished slowly along the weed line is the standing answer at Hepburn, Newlyn, Wombat and Wendouree alike, and a Woolly Bugger is the easy one to reach for.

Cairn Curran asks for a heavier outfit when you are after its natives. Golden perch and cod sit against rock, timber and weed, and a big dark streamer crawled slowly past that cover is how you meet them; a seven or eight weight for the perch, heavier again for cod.

The Coliban is a dry-fly river. Its trout are few but they will eat a big fly: a Chernobyl Ant or a grasshopper pattern, with a nymph hung underneath in the higher flows and deeper holes. Expect to skip the overgrown bits.

First trip, Daylesford: Hepburn Lagoon if the sky is grey, Wombat if the wind is up, and walk the shore at either until you see a fish. If you are passing through Ballarat with an hour to spare, take a rod to Wendouree and fish the weed edges from the path. Give Cairn Curran its own trip, on foot in late winter for trout or by boat in the warm months for perch and cod. Fish the Coliban from late spring, start at the Springhill Road bridge, and only when the river has some water in it.

For rivers within reach of the city, see Fly fishing around Melbourne. The crater lakes and the Grampians are on the South West page.

Winter is baitfish time on the lakes. Trout at Hepburn and Wendouree chase smelt and other small fish, and smelting trout are one of Hepburn’s highlights. At Cairn Curran the falling level ahead of the spring refill pushes yabbies out of their burrows, and trout cruise the margin to pick them off; it is the best of that lake’s trout fishing, and a yabby pattern belongs in the box.

Spring brings mayfly to Wendouree and Hepburn, and golden perch onto the warming edges at Cairn Curran. From late spring the Coliban’s trout start eating big dries.

Summer evenings on Hepburn and Wendouree belong to mudeyes, fished as the light goes. Cairn Curran’s cod come on in the warm water, best at first and last light, and Wombat is busy with insects and rising fish. Watch the Coliban: summer and autumn flows below Malmsbury Reservoir can drop critically low and short of oxygen, and that is a reason to fish somewhere else.

Autumn is Wendouree’s second mayfly window, and a quiet season of small wets and nymphs at Wombat. At Hepburn a grey day beats a bright one in any season; at Wombat it is the calm days that bring the midge.

Seasons, closed waters, limits and licence requirements change; check the current Victorian recreational fishing guide before you fish.

Several of these lakes are town or irrigation storages, and the VFA’s Loddon guide names Central Highlands Water as the manager of Hepburn and Wombat; read the signs at each one. Hepburn and Newlyn sit in farmland, so a shoreline you can see from the road is not always one you may walk. Respect fences and gates, and treat any access a water page describes as a place, not a promise.