Adelong Creek flows into the Murrumbidgee River. The charts on this water show how its flow and temperature behave through the year, so read them before you plan around the weather.

In our experience, trout in a creek like this sit where the water gives them cover and a steady supply of food: the head of a pool where the run tips in, the seam beside faster current, the slack behind a log or a boulder.

NSW stocking records list brown trout released into the creek in each recent season, so brown trout are the fish to plan for. Rainbow trout were released in one earlier season, and Murray cod once. Treat both as a bonus rather than a target. Carp, goldfish and eastern gambusia are also recorded in the creek.

The rest of the fly box is a guide’s read. Stocked trout take nymphs drifting along the bottom and whatever lands on the surface, which in warm weather includes grasshoppers, beetles and ants off the bank. A few buoyant dries, a hopper and some bead-head nymphs cover most of it.

Settle the rules first: take any season for the creek from the current NSW trout guide. Within whatever it allows, a NSW trout stream usually fishes best from late spring into autumn. Summer is the time for hoppers along the banks, fished early and late when the light is off the water. After heavy rain, give a creek a day or two to drop and clear before you fish it.

Travel light and fish upstream. Keep low, stay back from the edge, and make short casts with as little line on the water as you can.

Start with a dry and dropper: a Royal Wulff with a bead-head Pheasant Tail under it on a short tippet. Put it in the head of each pool and let it ride down the seam. Two or three good drifts tell you whether a fish is home; then move up. In summer, swap the dry for a hopper and land it close to the bank wherever grass meets the water.

The access card names the access points. Treat them as locations, not a statement of permission, and respect any fence or sign you meet on the ground.

As on any bush creek, tell someone where you are going and when you expect to be back, carry water and a small first-aid kit, and watch your footing on wet rock. A creek can rise quickly after rain, so keep an eye on the sky and never wade a crossing you are unsure of.

No water-specific rule was found. Before you fish, read the current NSW Department of Primary Industries and Regional Development trout guide, check its trout-water lists and closed-waters list for the creek, and take any season, bag and size limits and licence requirements from it.