Forty-four kilometres of south-west Victorian river running into Warrnambool, a wild brown trout stream through the Grassmere and Woodford farm country above Bromfield Street Weir, and an estuary of perch and bream below it, with the Woodford gauge on the upper stretch.
The Merri is the river Warrnambool grew up beside, and it is worth a day because it is two different trips in one small town: a wild brown trout stream, and an estuary for when the trout water is too warm.
The line between them is a weir. Bromfield Street Weir sits about nine kilometres above the sea, and Victoria classifies the river by that named site, so above the weir is the freshwater river, and below it is the estuary.
The trout river is the trip to plan around. For thirty-odd kilometres it winds down through the dairy and grazing country of Grassmere and Woodford as a slow, willow-edged stream: deep pools between short riffles, banks cut into the volcanic soil, and a brown under every undercut that has watched the paddock for a week. The fish are wild. The surveys have browns electrofished from the river in every decade since the 1980s, which is not what a put-and-take fishery looks like. In our experience spring is the season, September to December, while the pools are full and the water is cool. Come then, walk the bank slowly, and give the first cast to the shade.
The estuary is the second trip, and on a summer evening it is the better one. Below the weir the river runs through the town to the sea, and the trout give way to
estuary perch, bream and the fish of the coast. A six weight and a dark streamer along the snags in the last hour of light, November to April, fished to the tide.
The Woodford gauge reads the upper river, and its readings sit on that stretch page. After rain the Merri colours and rises. Give it a few dry days, and check the current Victorian guide for the rules on whichever side of the weir you fish.