The Cotter's trout water, the twenty-odd kilometres of classified stream between Bendora Dam and the Condor Creek junction, with wild rainbows, deep-nymphing runs in the spring melt, a mayfly afternoon and ant falls in the pine country later on.
This is the Cotter people mean when they say they are fishing the Cotter: the classified trout water from the wall of Bendora Dam down to where Condor Creek comes in, a little over twenty kilometres of cold clear river inside Namadgi National Park with wild rainbows in it.
The stretch has a simple shape. It leaves the dam as a regulated tailwater, gathers its side creeks and runs north through the park in runs, bends and pools, and ends at a creek junction that the rules use as a line. Above and below it the river is closed, so this is the whole trip.
In spring the melt comes down the side drainages and the river can be heavy and icy at the October opening. That is deep-nymphing water: get off the main current into the slower runs, let a heavy rig plummet, and expect the take at the tail-out. When a warm afternoon brings the duns on, move to the tail-outs with a dry. By summer the water is low and clear and the larger fish hold off the back of the big deep bends, where a high bank and a careful look are worth more than a long cast. Later in the season the ant falls out of the pine country are the event.
The rules are the trout-water set: open from the October Labour Day long weekend to the end of the June King’s Birthday long weekend, fly and lure only, no bait, one rod. The current territory brochure carries the size and bag limits.
Do this stretch first if you have one ACT trout day. Do not go looking for the reservoirs: both ends of this water are closed catchment.