Morong Creek to the Coxs

Gorge country from end to end, but not the same gorge all the way. The fall of the river shows the confined bedrock of the headwaters finishing a few kilometres below Morong Creek, and from there the bed is gravel between walls that never quite let go. The occasional small flat where a side creek comes in, then walls again. The gradient eases steadily downstream and the runs lengthen: by Cedar Ford the pools are long enough to fish properly, and below it the river is a chain of gravel runs, riffles and pools that a Monaro angler would recognise, only with a cliff on each side.

The bank survey from space is the other half of the picture. Closed canopy for most of the length, open enough here and there to let light down, and no cleared or farmed ground anywhere. The bottom five kilometres before the Coxs are the darkest water on the river. That shade is what keeps this stretch fishable on afternoons that would shut down an open tableland stream, and it is what makes the terrestrials matter more than the hatches.

Cedar Ford is where the river is measured and where the Gingra Trail comes down. It is the natural base for a two-day trip: fish up into the tighter water on one day and down through the longer runs on the other.

Wild, and almost entirely unrecorded. The headwaters above this stretch are classified as trout water by the department. Treat it as unproven and let a day on the water do the counting. If you find trout here and it fishes well, you know something almost nobody has written down.

What they eat falls from the trees. Beetles, ants and cicadas out of the closed canopy from late spring through summer, onto water that sees a fly perhaps once a season. In the gravel runs, caddis larvae under every stone and a good hatch in the evening from the runs below Cedar Ford.

Read the Conditions card before you decide, and read it the day before you walk, not the morning of. Cedar Ford reads flow, height, temperature and turbidity, and the turbidity is the one anglers forget: after rain on the plateau the river colours before it rises, and a turbid reading means the pockets are unreadable for a day or two even if the flow looks manageable. This is a rain-fed gorge, not snowmelt country. Give it a few dry days.

From late spring until the first frosts it is at its best: settled, clear, cool under the canopy, with the terrestrials falling and the evening caddis on. Autumn is the quiet prime. A closed gorge like this runs cooler than the same day on the open Monaro, which is a reason to fish early and keep fish wet on a hot day, not a reason to assume the water is cold.

If the forecast is wet, wait. If the river is up or dirty when you get to the bottom of the trail, that is your answer for the trip, and you fish the edges from the bank or you rest.

You are covering ground on foot in clear, confined water, and the first cast into a pocket is usually the only one that counts. Fish the seams along the bedrock, the soft edges behind boulders, and the tails of the gravel runs once the gorge opens a little. Keep your approach low and your shadow off the water.

A four or five weight and a floating line covers everything. The dry-dropper is the rig: a Stimulator or a Royal Wulff you can see in broken light, with a tungsten Hare’s Ear or Pheasant Tail two feet under it, so the fish choose the level without you changing flies every ten minutes. In the evening runs below Cedar Ford, an Elk Hair Caddis on its own until you cannot see it. When the water is carrying colour, or the fish are deep and tight after a rise, a small Woolly Bugger swung through the deeper slots.

Casting room is the job. Roll casts, bow-and-arrow casts into pockets under the timber, and next to no room behind you almost anywhere. A short leader you can control beats a long one you cannot.

Wading is the real work, and it is slow. Bedrock turns slick, the walls pinch in, and a fall in this country is a long way from help. Felt or studded soles earn their keep on this river. If you cannot see the next footing, do not take it.

Remote gorge, reached almost entirely on foot. The two mapped walks are long: the Gingra Trail from the Kanangra tops drops to the river at Cedar Ford, and the Uni Rover Trail comes in from the road to Kanangra Walls, each given as around twenty kilometres. Roots Ridge, Bulga Ridge and Black Snake Bend are bushwalkers’ routes into the gorge, and they are for people who already know them. The Denis Ridge trail comes off Scotts Main Range toward the river, but the lower spur is patchy. All of it is Kanangra-Boyd and Blue Mountains national park; a track on a map is not a right to walk it today, so check the current NPWS alerts before you go.

The bottom of the gorge runs toward Lake Burragorang. Check with WaterNSW before you plan on fishing that far down.

Treat this like the remote walk it is. Carry what you would need to look after an injured person overnight a long way from a road, tell someone your plan and your exit day, and give yourself the daylight to climb out comfortably rather than in the dark. There is no second gauge on the walk in; the call is yours, standing on the bank.

NSW DPIRD’s general trout classification on the Kowmung stops at the Morong Creek junction, and this stretch is below it, so the classification does not apply here. What does apply is the ordinary NSW freshwater rulebook for the fish you catch, trout included.

Check the current NSW freshwater synopsis before you fish. The numbers move.