Imagery: Esri, Vantor, Earthstar Geographics

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Stewarts Brook

River

37.8 km

Main stem

Species recorded

Access places

Stocking records

A small NSW brook in the Hunter River catchment with brown and rainbow trout stocked into it in recent seasons, fished with light gear, small dries and nymphs.

Stewarts Brook is a small stream in the Hunter River catchment of NSW, and the reason to drive to it is the trout: NSW stocking records show browns and rainbows released into it season after season.

Think of it as one piece of water. The brook runs down to join the Hunter River, and in our experience it is simplest to fish it as one stream that gets smaller and tighter the further up you walk.

The trip worth making is the brook itself in the warmer months, for brown and rainbow trout. Choose one of the access points on the access card, walk to the water and fish upstream with a dry and a small nymph under it. The current NSW trout guide and its trout-water lists decide when you can fish and what you can keep, so read them before you settle on a date. Spend your time on the pools and the deeper runs and walk quickly past thin, even water where a trout has nowhere to hide. On a bright summer day, start early or come back for the last hour of light, when small-stream trout feed with the least caution and a dry fly gets its best chance.

In our experience a small stream’s top end can hold fish that see few flies, but treat it as an extension of a day on the main water, not a trip of its own.

Pack a 3 or 4 weight and a box of small dries and nymphs, and read the NSW trout guide before you leave home.

Species records

Historical records and regulatory mentions. They do not establish current abundance, a suitable angling target or permission to fish.

Brown Trout

Stocking history 2020–2026

Rainbow Trout

Stocking history 2020–2026

No live gauge

No gauge readings are available for this water.

Season

Access & parking

Driving directions

Water and habitat

A small brook running down to a big river. On water this size, cover matters more than almost anything else. Where the banks are open, trout see you coming across the grass; where they are shaded, overhanging growth gives fish somewhere to sit and drops food into the water.

In our experience, trout in a brook like this hold in the deeper water: the head of a pool where the run tips in, the seam beside faster current, an undercut bank, the slack behind a log or a boulder. Shallow, even-bottomed stretches hold fewer fish and spook them first.

Fish and forage

NSW stocking records list brown trout and rainbow trout released into the brook over recent seasons, and the stocking chart shows the pattern. Both have gone in right up to the latest season, so for the fishing that likely means a run of young stocked fish of both kinds, with the odd brown that has survived a few years and learned to be careful. A stream this size usually keeps most trout modest.

Atlas of Living Australia records also list two small native fish in the brook, mountain galaxias and western carp gudgeon. A little fish in the water is a good reason to carry a small streamer alongside the nymphs.

The rest of the fly box is a guide’s read. Small-stream trout feed mostly on nymphs drifting along the bottom and on whatever lands on the surface, and in warm weather that includes grasshoppers, beetles and ants off the bank. A few buoyant dries, a hopper and some bead-head nymphs in sizes 12 to 16 cover most of it.

Stocking history

Reported past stocking. These records do not establish survival, present abundance or a current stocking programme.

Stocking recorded for Stewarts Brook

11 source records · latest 10 reported periods

Labels such as 2023/24 cover July to June. Each financial-year record is a site total, not an individual release. Missing periods are not reported as zero.

Rainbow Trout

Brown Trout

Latest source records

2025/26

Rainbow Trout · 3,000 · Site financial-year total

2025/26

Brown Trout · 10,000 · Site financial-year total

2024/25

Rainbow Trout · 3,000 · Site financial-year total

2023/24

Rainbow Trout · 3,000 · Site financial-year total

2023/24

Brown Trout · 10,000 · Site financial-year total

NSW Department of Primary Industries and Regional Development (Fisheries) ↗

Brown Trout

Salmo trutta

2020–2026 · 5 records · Stewarts Brook

NSW Department of Primary Industries and Regional Development (Fisheries) ↗

Rainbow Trout

Oncorhynchus mykiss

2020–2026 · 6 records · Stewarts Brook

NSW Department of Primary Industries and Regional Development (Fisheries) ↗

When to fish it

Settle the rules first: take any season for the brook from the current NSW trout guide. Within whatever it allows, a small NSW trout stream usually fishes best from late spring into autumn. Late spring brings the first steady hatches and water with some push in it. Summer is the time for hoppers and terrestrials along the banks, fished early and late when the light is off the water. Autumn often brings cooler, clearer days when browns get busier. After heavy rain, give a small brook a day or two to drop and clear.

THE YEAR ON THIS WATER

Dry and dropper through the pools

Fly · Nov–Mar

A guide’s read, not a record. A size 12 to 14 Royal Wulff with a small bead-head nymph under it is a good first rig on a small trout brook once the weather warms. Take any season for the brook from the current NSW trout guide before you plan the trip.

Hoppers along grassy banks

Fly · Dec–Mar

In our experience late summer on a small brook is hopper time wherever grass meets the water. Land it tight to the bank and let it sit.

Nymphs when nothing is rising

Fly · Oct–Apr

A size 14 to 16 Pheasant Tail or Hare’s Ear fished short and upstream through the deeper runs is the fallback on a cool or bright day.

How to fish it

Travel light and fish upstream. A 3 or 4 weight rod of around 8 feet, a floating line and a 9 foot leader tapered to 5X is plenty. Keep low, stay back from the edge, and make short casts with as little line on the water as you can.

Start with a dry and dropper: a size 12 to 14 Royal Wulff with a size 14 to 16 bead-head Hare’s Ear or Pheasant Tail under it on a short tippet. Put it in the head of each pool and let it ride down the seam. Two or three good drifts tell you whether a fish is home; then move up. In summer, swap the dry for a hopper and land it close to the bank wherever grass meets the water. In the deeper, slower pools, a small Woolly Bugger stripped past cover can move a brown that will not come up.

Access and safety

The access card names the access points. Treat them as locations, not a statement of permission, and respect any fence or sign you meet on the ground.

As on any bush stream, tell someone where you are going and when you expect to be back, carry water and a small first-aid kit, and watch your footing on wet rock and undercut banks. A small brook can rise quickly after rain, so keep an eye on the sky and never wade a crossing you are unsure of.

2WD · Public Road · Narrow roadway. · Difficult access

View place

Directions

Regulations

Before you fish, read the current NSW Department of Primary Industries and Regional Development trout guide, check its trout-water lists and closed-waters list for the brook, and take any season, bag and size limits and licence requirements from it.