The Queanbeyan River is a trout river that keeps being topped up. Brown and rainbow trout have both been recorded in it, and NSW has released rainbow trout into it in season after season.
One thing cuts the river in two: a dam. Googong Dam holds a reservoir across the river, so there are two parts to think about. Above the reservoir is the river with its creeks and tributaries; below the dam wall the river runs on until it joins the Molonglo River, the bigger river it feeds. The gradient chart shows how it falls through both parts.
The first trip is the easy one: rainbows in spring. Choose a site from the access card, walk to the first run with some depth and broken water at its head, and dead-drift a small nymph through it. Before you go, read the current NSW fishing guide, including its closed-waters list, and the ACT rules if you are on the territory side, because those guides decide whether trout are open on the day you arrive and what you may keep.
The second trip is for browns, and it asks more of you. Go in autumn or on a summer evening, move slowly upstream, and look for fish holding along undercut banks and tree roots. In our experience a brown that has lived in a river for a few years will not take a fly that lands hard, so lengthen your leader and cast less.
The third trip is a summer one for redfin and carp. Both have been recorded in the river, and in our experience both sit in the slower, warmer pools once the weather settles. A streamer finds the redfin; the carp want a nymph put right in front of them.
Start with the rainbows in spring, and open the NSW fishing guide before you leave home.
Water and habitat
The river is two waters joined by a dam. Upstream of the reservoir it is a river of runs and pools fed by its own creeks and tributaries. Downstream of the wall it carries on to the Molonglo, and in our experience water below a dam can rise and fall with what the dam lets through, so the pool you fished last week may not look the same today.
The flow duration chart, read at a gauge below the dam, shows how often that water runs low or high, and the bank cover chart shows how much of the bank is timbered. Trout hold where the current delivers food and cover sits close: the head of a pool where a riffle spills in, the seam beside faster water, and the shade of an overhanging bank. Redfin and carp prefer the slow, deeper water where weed grows in summer.
The live conditions card lists the gauges for this river. Check where each one sits before you treat its reading as the flow at your spot, because a gauge on one side of the dam tells you nothing about the other.
Fish and forage
Brown trout and rainbow trout have both been recorded in the river. The stocking chart shows rainbows released into it across recent seasons, which in practice means many of the rainbows you meet are likely to be stocked fish, often of a similar size and often less wary than a wild fish. The stocking chart shows only rainbows, so a brown is more likely to be a fish that has grown up in the river.
Redfin and European carp have been recorded here as well. In our experience both are worth a fly rod in summer.
Two small fish round out the list. Mountain galaxias are a small fish that trout and redfin eat, and a slim, drab streamer suggests one. Gambusia are tiny fish of warm, still margins. Beyond fish, the usual river insects are the staple: mayfly and caddis nymphs in the riffles, and in summer grasshoppers and beetles blown onto the water from the bank.
When to fish it
Read the current NSW fishing guide before you plan any trout trip, because it decides when trout may be fished here.
- Spring (October and November). In our experience the best time for stocked rainbows. Nymph the heads of runs through the day.
- Summer (December to February). Fish early and late for trout, with dries and terrestrials in the evening. This is the time for redfin and carp in the slower pools.
- Autumn (March to May). Cooler water and, in our experience, browns feeding hard before winter. A good time for a careful dry fly or a small streamer.
- Winter. Check the NSW fishing guide before you plan a trout trip. The hydro-thermal chart shows water temperature through the year from a gauge above the reservoir, so treat it as a guide to that water, not to the river below the wall.
How to fish it
A 4 or 5 weight rod of eight and a half or nine feet covers almost everything here. For rainbows, a size 14 to 16 Pheasant Tail or Hare's Ear under a small indicator, dead-drifted through the head of a run, is a good bet. For rising fish, carry an Elk Hair Caddis in size 14 and a Royal Wulff for faster water.
Browns want a quieter approach. Wade as little as you can, cast upstream from below the fish, and give it a long, fine leader. In autumn a small streamer swung through a deep bend can move a brown that ignores everything else.
For redfin, strip a size 8 to 10 Woolly Bugger past weed edges and drop-offs, and vary the speed until something follows. For carp, find a fish feeding in shallow water, put a weighted nymph a short distance in front of it, and wait for the fish to tip onto it.
Access and safety
The access card names the sites from the NSW angler access sites. Use it to choose where to start, and treat each site as a location only, not as a promise of a way in. Respect fences, gates and signs on the ground.
As on any river, give it room after rain: water rises quickly and a crossing that was easy in the morning can be dangerous by afternoon. Below a dam, watch for the water changing level while you wade, and keep your route back to the bank in mind. In summer, watch where you put your feet in long grass.
Regulations
Check which jurisdiction you are standing in before you fish. On the NSW side, read the current NSW Department of Primary Industries and Regional Development freshwater fishing guide, including its closed-waters list and its trout water rules. On the ACT side, read the current ACT fishing rules made under the Fisheries Act 2000. Take any season, bag, size or licence requirement from those guides, not from a calendar or a forum post.
