Photo: Castabout
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Coxs River
River
·
Blue Mountains National Park
170 km
Main stem
3
Reaches
81%
Tree cover on banks
3
Species recorded
60
Ways in
From the Lithgow tablelands to Sydney's drinking-water storage: a farmed trout river you can reach from a bridge, two lakes in the middle, and a wilderness gorge at the bottom where rainbows reportedly run up from the storage in winter.
The Coxs is a popular trout river about two hours’ drive west of Sydney, in the Lithgow country. What makes it worth learning is that it is really three rivers wearing one name. Two dams, Lake Wallace and then Lake Lyell, cut it into an upper, a middle and a lower river, and each fishes as a different trip. The month you have free decides which one you take.
The middle river is the one to start on. Below the Lyell wall the Coxs runs through farmland, and you can reach it from a road at four named points: the McKanes Falls Road bridge, the Glenroy camping area, Duddawarra bridge, Sandy Hook. It holds brown and rainbow trout, and it is the water people mean when they talk about fishing the Coxs. This stretch is a classified trout water, which in practice means it closes for the NSW trout season; the current NSW freshwater synopsis has the dates. In our experience, once it is open and until the summer heat thins the riffles, the fish sit in the deep permanent pools, and a morning from a bridge will find them.
The lower river is the winter trip, and it is a different proposition. At the Little River junction the paddocks end and the Coxs drops into a forested gorge, the steepest water on the whole system, with the Kowmung and the Jenolan coming in from wilderness. The trout classification does not apply below that junction, and rainbows that have grown big in Lake Burragorang reportedly push up into the gorge through July, August and September. You walk in for them: the Six Foot Track crosses the river about four kilometres upstream of the Little River junction. The lowest water runs down into Lake Burragorang, Sydney’s drinking-water storage, and where closed country begins on the Coxs is a question to put to WaterNSW before you go. Plan it as a long day in cold country, not a session from a car.
The upper river, above Lake Wallace, is a small tableland stream between farms and power-station land. It is fishable, but it is the trip you take because you are already there, not the one you drive up for.
Each stretch has its own page with the access points, the current rules and a live gauge that tells you whether the river is worth the drive. Pick the month, then read that stretch before you pack.
Fish in this water
Each fish is rated by its strongest evidence. A rating says how sure we are a fish is here, not how many there are, whether it is worth fishing for or whether you may keep it.
Confirmed
Recorded on this water in the last 15 years, or named for it by a fishery agency, its fishing rules or a fishing publication.
Likely
Older records here, recent stocking, a local guide or fly shop, a guide listing, or recent records on connected water nearby.
No live gauge
No gauge readings are available for this water.
Season
Regulations
2
Driving directions
Reaches
3 stretches
Water and habitat
The mainstem falls from the tableland to the storage, and the fall of the river below tells you where each kind of water is. The first stretch is a valley-fill stream in open, farmed country, easing gently; then two flat shelves where the water sits in Lake Wallace and Lake Lyell, with a short bedrock connector between them. Below Lyell the river alternates between confined gorge and small gravel and sand floodplains, which is the farmed water of Glenroy, Duddawarra and Sandy Hook. Then the profile drops off a shelf, a steep fall through confined bedrock down to the Little River junction. Below that the gorge runs on sand and gravel between forested walls, easing all the way into the top of Lake Burragorang.
Headwaters to Lake Wallace is the start: a small tableland stream north of Wallerawang, roads and farms and power-station land, with the first gauge on it.
Lake Wallace and Lake Lyell are their own waters, each with a page, and the river runs through both. The connector between them is on the map, not a page.
Below Lyell to Little River is the classified trout water, and it is the river most anglers mean: farmland pools, the Lett junction at Glenroy, Duddawarra, Sandy Hook, and the Six Foot Track country as the timber closes in. Two gauges sit on it.
Little River to Warragamba Dam is the gorge. The Kowmung and the Jenolan join on this lower water, the trout classification does not apply, and the storage is the end of the map.
The bank survey from space draws the same three rivers. The tableland and the farmed water below Lyell read as open woodland with grass and some cultivation on the bank. Below the Little River junction that cultivation vanishes and dense forest takes over, all the way to the storage.
BANK COVER ALONG THE RIVER · SATELLITE-CLASSIFIED, 2023–25
Dense trees
Open woodland
Sparse trees
Native grass & tussock
Cultivated
Bare
Fish and forage
Brown trout and rainbow trout, both in the survey record from the 1990s onward. Nothing is stocked into the river itself: the fish are wild, or have used the storages and come back. The survey record also carries the small fish a farmed tableland river collects, mountain galaxias, eels, gudgeon, and the unwelcome redfin, goldfish and gambusia in the slower pools. Carp are possible too. The department’s general trout classification above Little River is a rule about how you fish, not a headcount.
The fish that make the gorge worth a winter walk are reportedly rainbows that have grown in Lake Burragorang. They are not the fish you cover from McKanes Falls Road in November.
What the trout eat changes with the country. On the farmed water it is caddis in the evening runs, mayfly on the flatter pools, and from Christmas the grasshoppers off the paddock banks. In the gorge it is whatever falls out of the forest, and in winter the running fish are not feeding so much as reacting.
Observation history
Occurrence records do not establish present abundance or angling suitability. Counts are records, not fish. Environmental DNA indicates a detection in water, not a captured fish.
These records fall inside the mapped waterbody or within 250 m of a mapped waterway. Records with stated positional uncertainty above 1 km were excluded; some included locations have unstated uncertainty.
Rainbow Trout
Oncorhynchus mykiss
1994–2024 · 6 records · Coxs River
Other electrofishing (3) · Unstated or other method (3)
Data: iNaturalist Australia (CC-BY 4.0 (Int)); Australian Museum provider for OZCAM (CC-BY 3.0 (Au)); NSW BioNet Atlas (CC-BY 4.0 (Int))
Atlas of Living Australia ↗Redfin
Perca fluviatilis
2022 · 1 record · Coxs River
Unstated or other method (1)
Data: iNaturalist Australia (CC-BY 4.0 (Int))
Atlas of Living Australia ↗Brown Trout
Salmo trutta
1994–2007 · 7 records · Coxs River
Other electrofishing (6) · Unstated or other method (1)
Data: Australian Museum provider for OZCAM (CC-BY 3.0 (Au))
Atlas of Living Australia ↗Southern Shortfin Eel
Anguilla australis
1994 · 1 record · Coxs River
Other electrofishing (1)
Data: Australian Museum provider for OZCAM (CC-BY 3.0 (Au))
Atlas of Living Australia ↗Goldfish
Carassius auratus
1997–2024 · 4 records · Coxs River
Other electrofishing (3) · Unstated or other method (1)
Data: Australian Museum provider for OZCAM (CC-BY 3.0 (Au)); NSW BioNet Atlas (CC-BY 4.0 (Int))
Atlas of Living Australia ↗Mountain Galaxias
Galaxias olidus
1997–2014 · 17 records · Coxs River
Backpack electrofishing (10) · Other electrofishing (3) · Netting (2) · Unstated or other method (2)
Data: University of Canberra - Wildlife Genetics Database (CC-BY 4.0 (Int)); Australian Museum provider for OZCAM (CC-BY 3.0 (Au)); Museums Victoria provider for OZCAM (CC0); South Australian Museum Adelaide provider for OZCAM (CC-BY)
Atlas of Living Australia ↗Flathead Gudgeon
Philypnodon grandiceps
1999–2001 · 3 records · Coxs River
Backpack electrofishing (2) · Other electrofishing (1)
Data: Australian Museum provider for OZCAM (CC-BY 3.0 (Au)); Museums Victoria provider for OZCAM (CC0)
Atlas of Living Australia ↗Eastern Gambusia
Gambusia holbrooki
1994–1997 · 3 records · Coxs River
Other electrofishing (3)
Data: Australian Museum provider for OZCAM (CC-BY 3.0 (Au))
Atlas of Living Australia ↗When to fish it
Three trips, three calendars. Late spring, once the classified water opens, is the roadside window: the pools are full from winter, the river is cool, and the fish have not seen a fly since the closure. Midsummer runs the tableland and the farmed water low and warm, and the permanent pools are where the trout are; fish the first and last hours, and if the forecast is hot, stay under the timber toward Sandy Hook or leave the river alone. Autumn on the farmed water is quietly good.
Winter is the gorge or nothing. The classified stretches close for the NSW trout season; check the current synopsis for the dates. Below Little River, rainbows reportedly run up out of the storage through July, August and September, and that is a long, cold walk-in rather than a session from a bridge.
The gauges tell you whether to go. Wallerawang, Lithgow and Island Hill all read flow and height, and the two upper stations read turbidity. Their latest readings are on the stretch pages. As on any gorge river, give it a few dry days after rain before you walk in.
THE YEAR ON THIS WATER
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Closed season
Closed · Jun–Oct
Upstream from its junction with the Little River, including its creeks and tributaries but not the Little River itself. Closed from the Tuesday after the June long weekend until midnight on the last Friday before the October long weekend. Check the current NSW rules before fishing.
Open-season roadside window
Fly · Oct–Dec
Bridges, Glenroy, Duddawarra, Sandy Hook, before the summer low.
Caddis in the evening runs
Food · Nov–Apr
The gravel runs below Lyell fish best in the last hour. An Elk Hair Caddis until dark.
Hoppers along the paddock banks
Food · Dec–Mar
On the farmed water a hopper worked tight to the grassed bank is the daytime fly once the paddocks dry off.
Rainbows up from the storage
Fish run · Jul–Sep
Fish that have grown in Lake Burragorang reportedly push up into the gorge below Little River. A long cold walk.
How to fish it
Above the gorge, fish it as a farmed tableland river. A four or five weight, a dry-dropper with an Adams or a Royal Wulff over a hot-spot Pheasant Tail, and the patience to cover the pools rather than the skinny runs. A hopper along the grassed banks once the paddocks dry off. An Elk Hair Caddis in the evening riffles. When the river is carrying colour after rain, a small Woolly Bugger or a worm pattern is the honest fly.
In the gorge it is the same job as the Kowmung: bedrock seams, the soft edge behind a boulder, the tail of a gravel run, and the first cast into a pocket is the one that counts. In winter you are fishing for lake fish on the move, so a Woolly Bugger or a small streamer swung through the deeper slots, and a heavier nymph dead-drifted through the tail-outs at first light.
Access and safety
The upper river is mixed country: roads, farms, power-station land. A gate and a fence are the answer, not an invitation to find a way around. The roadside ways in are named on the classified stretch, McKanes Falls Road bridge, Glenroy camping area, Duddawarra bridge on Coxs River Road, Sandy Hook off Cullenbenbong Road. The Six Foot Track is the walk into the top of the gorge, crossing the Coxs about four kilometres upstream of the Little River junction.
The lower river is park and walk-in, and it ends in Lake Burragorang, Sydney’s drinking-water storage and a WaterNSW dam. Treat the bottom of the gorge as closed water until WaterNSW tells you otherwise. Where the closed country begins above the lake is a question to put to WaterNSW before you plan a trip that far down, not something to find out at the bottom of the gorge. Carry what you would need a long way from a road, and give yourself the daylight to get back out.
Ways in
Where roads, tracks and paths reach the water, from mapped roads. Not a right of entry: check gates, land tenure and closures.
Brays Lane
Drive-up
Coxs River Road
Drive-up
Maddox Lane
Drive-up
McKanes Falls Road
Drive-up
Rocky Waterhole Drive
Drive-up
Track off Coxs River Road
0.12 km · 4WD track · off Coxs River Road
Regulations
NSW DPIRD classifies the Coxs as a general trout water upstream from its junction with the Little River, including the creeks and tributaries above that junction, but not the Little River itself. That classification brings the NSW trout season and the general-trout-water size and bag limits with it. It is stated on the two stretches above the junction. Below the junction the classification does not apply, and the ordinary NSW freshwater rules do.
The dates and the numbers move. Check the current NSW freshwater synopsis and the trout closure notification before you fish.
Permitted with conditions
NSW
Under NSW's trout and salmon fishing rules, Coxs River in the Central Tablelands district is classified as a general trout water; the classified extent covers its creeks and tributaries upstream from its junction with, but not including, the Little River.
NSW Department of Primary Industries and Regional Development
Read the rule at source ↗Prohibited
NSW
General trout streams are closed to taking any species of fish by any method each year from the Tuesday after the June (Queen's Birthday) long weekend until midnight on the last Friday before the start of the October (Labour Day) long weekend, both ends included. The dates move with the public holidays, so check the current NSW rules for this year's dates.
NSW Department of Primary Industries and Regional Development
Read the rule at source ↗Questions
Popular waters nearby
Related
Kowmung River
The wild gorge tributary that joins on the lowest stretch.
Lake Lyell
The second. The classified river begins again below its wall.
Thompsons Creek Reservoir
A storage on a tributary in the same headwater country.
Rainbow trout
The fish that make the winter walk worth it.
New South Wales
Jurisdiction guide and current authority links.
Page reviewed 2026-09-21