Ross to Brumbys Creek

This is the Macquarie of the books. From the bridge at Ross to the Brumbys Creek junction eighty-three kilometres downstream, the river winds gently through Midlands farmland in long, slow, clear glides between short riffles, with no rapids and very little fall. The Elizabeth River comes in from Campbell Town, then the Isis, then the Lake River, and two gauges sit either side of the Elizabeth junction to tell you what the river is doing. The fish are wild browns, and on this water they behave the way the dry-fly tradition says they should: they hold in the lanes of the glides and in spring they drift up under the red spinners and take them, or refuse them, in full view. It is not fast fishing. It is walking a glide slowly with polaroids on, finding a fish, and making one cast. Summer thins the river and moves the fishing to the first and last hours; late in the season the hoppers come off the grass and the browns tight to the bank for them. Most of it is private land, and the signed foot access landowners allow is goodwill the next angler needs you to keep. Come in spring for the spinners, and come back in March for the hoppers.