Tamworth's river, cut in two by Chaffey Dam, with Murray cod and golden perch recorded and stocked, and rainbow trout released by NSW every season since 2020.
The Peel is the river Tamworth sits on, and it is native-fish water: Murray cod and golden perch are the reason to fish it. Chaffey Dam cuts it in two, and the river below the wall is where most of the cod records come from.
Above the dam the Peel is a small stream coming down past Nundle, where a weir splits it again. Below the wall it is a bigger, slower river that runs through Tamworth and on to the Namoi. If it is your first trip, start below Chaffey Dam in the warm months and work down towards Tamworth.
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.
Murray cod have been recorded in the river from 2009 to 2019 and golden perch from 2006 to 2015, mostly in electrofishing surveys, and NSW stocked both as recently as 2025/26. Freshwater catfish and river blackfish appear in older survey records. Carp have more records than any native fish, so expect them on a streamer.
The small fish the bigger natives eat are here as well: Australian smelt, mountain galaxias and hardyheads have all been recorded.
The trout are the open question. Rainbows have gone in every season from 2020/21 to 2025/26, four to six thousand a season, but the stocking records don’t say where, and no survey on the Peel has recorded one. Treat them as a possibility, not the plan.
Observation history
Stocking 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.
Data: Sustainable Rivers Audit (CC-BY-Int); Australian Museum provider for OZCAM (CC-BY 3.0 (Au)); Murray-Darling Basin fish monitoring survey (CC-BY-Int)
We hold no season for the Peel, so read the season, bag and size limits in the current NSW freshwater guide before you go. Check it for a closed season on Murray cod before you plan a spring trip. The flow gauges at Piallamore, Tamworth and Carroll Gap show whether the river is up or running low.
Getting on the water
NSW lists more than eighty angler access sites along the river, many of them travelling stock reserves. Some need a four-wheel drive and most carry the reserve’s own conditions, so read the site details and the signs on the ground before you fish.
Pick a reserve below the dam, check the cod rules for the month, and go in summer.