Mitta Mitta River

Two hundred and twenty-eight kilometres of mapped mainstem. The alpine river runs the first fifty-nine kilometres from the headwaters to the lake inflow, Hinnomunjie Bridge country, with Big River and the Gibbo joining on the way; the Hinnomunjie gauge reads flow, height, water temperature and conductivity. Lake Dartmouth then holds the river.

The tailrace is the fifty-eight kilometres from the Banimboola pondage below the wall down to Peters Bridge, past Tallandoon, Bowlers Lane and Eskdale, each with a gauge. When the dam is releasing the river is even, cold and strong; when it is not, you are on a smaller river in the same bed.

The lower river is the forty kilometres from Peters Bridge down to the top of Lake Hume, slower and broader in the holds, Pigs Point on the bank. The drowned stem inside Hume is the end of the map, not a fourth page.

Brown trout are in the survey record, with rainbow trout alongside. Both are wild here; the Victorian Fisheries Authority’s stocking database records no trout released into the river. Twospine blackfish and redfin are in the record, and so are gambusia and gudgeon. Murray cod appear in wild surveys from the 1970s and have been stocked in most years since 2006, with trout cod released in the mid 1990s; both records are whole-river totals. That is what was counted and what was put in, not a headcount for tomorrow.

Above the lake you are in trout country. Below Peters Bridge the slower water is the natives’ side of the river, Murray cod and golden perch, with trout still about.

The trout eat caddis and mayfly in the runs, and through summer the grasshoppers and beetles off the open valley flats above and below the lake. The cod eat whatever comes past the snag.

Fish the stretch in front of you. Above the lake the river runs to the mountain calendar: spring rain and melt hold it high and cold, and from late spring it drops into small, clear pocket water. The tailrace runs to the dam’s calendar, and a release can lift it while the sky is clear. The lower river runs to both, and carries colour longest after rain.

The tailrace has a closed season of its own for the trout and salmon season, and that page states it. Open the stretch before you pack.

Above the lake, mountain-river fishing: a four or five weight, a dry-dropper with a Royal Wulff or a Stimulator over a tungsten Pheasant Tail, one cast per pocket and a step upstream. On the tailrace, regulated-river fishing: look for the seam off the main push, the inside bend and the tail of a run, with heavier nymphs when the release is on and a parachute Adams or an Elk Hair Caddis when it eases and the fish look up. Below Peters Bridge, snags and shade and a six weight for the natives, a Woolly Bugger for the trout in the deeper bends. The stretch pages take each of these further.

North-east Victoria: alpine and foothill country, mixed public and private banks, the Omeo Highway following the river through Tallandoon and Eskdale. A gate and a fence are the answer, not an invitation to find a way around. Confirm who holds the bank before you walk it. The Victorian Fisheries Authority’s northern inland angling guide for this basin is the authority listing for access points; a pin on that map is not a right of entry. Named ways in sit on the stretch pages. Lake Dartmouth, Lake Banimboola and Lake Hume are other waters, and so is Big River.

On the tailrace, as below any dam, watch the release: a river that was wadeable at breakfast can be waist-deep and pushing by lunch with no cloud in the sky. Carry what you would need a long way from a sealed road, and give yourself the daylight to get back out.

Victorian rules apply on every stretch. The trout and salmon closed season applies on the pondage-to-Peters Bridge stretch, where the river is closed to all hook-and-line fishing for the season, and that page is where it is stated. Murray cod carry their own season, size and bag in Victoria.

Check the current Victorian recreational fishing guide before you fish. The dates and numbers move.