Carters Brook is a small trout stream in the Peel District of NSW, and the reason to drive to it is plain: it is a classified trout water with brown and rainbow trout stocked into it, water you can cover in a day with a light rod.
Its shape is simple. The brook gathers its own small creeks and tributaries, then runs down to one bottom end, where it joins Stewarts Brook, the larger stream it feeds. In our experience it is simplest to think of it as one piece of water that gets smaller the further up you walk. The gradient chart shows how steeply it falls along the way.
The trip worth making is the brook itself, in the warmer months. Browns and rainbows are the fish. Choose one of the access points on the access card, walk to the water and fish upstream with a dry and a small nymph. Carters Brook is listed as a general trout water, which in practice means the closed season, bag and size limits and gear rules for general trout streams in the current NSW trout guide apply here, so the guide, not the weather, decides when you can go. Spend your time on the pools and the deeper runs, and walk quickly past thin, even water where a trout has nowhere to hide.
If you have the legs for it, the side creeks and the upper reaches are covered by the same trout-water listing, and in our experience a small stream's headwaters can hold fish that see few flies. Treat them as an extension of the main trip rather than a reason to drive up on their 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.
Water and habitat
A small brook falling towards a bigger one. The gradient chart shows the profile, and the bank cover chart shows how much of the edge is treed and how much is open, which on water this size matters more than almost anything else. Where the banks are open, trout see you coming across the grass. Where they are covered, the shade and overhanging growth give fish somewhere to sit and something falling into the water to eat.
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. The rainbows have gone in more recently than the browns, so for the fishing that likely means the rainbows you meet are younger stocked fish, while any brown has had longer to settle and wise up. In our experience a stream this size keeps most trout modest.
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. 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.
When to fish it
Settle the season first: Carters Brook is a general trout water, and the current NSW trout guide sets its closed season and limits. Within the open months, in our experience a small NSW trout stream 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 more active. After heavy rain, give a small brook a day or two to drop and clear.
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 or Royal Humpy 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 any deeper, slower pool you find, 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. Keep an eye on the weather: a small brook can rise quickly after rain, and it is never worth wading a crossing you are unsure of.
Regulations
Under the NSW trout and salmon fishing rules, Carters Brook in the Peel District is classified as a general trout water. The listing covers the whole brook and its creeks and tributaries upstream from its junction with Stewarts Brook, and includes Stewarts Brook. In practice that means the closed season, bag and size limits and gear rules the current NSW Department of Primary Industries and Regional Development trout guide sets for general trout streams apply here. Read that guide, including its closed-waters list and what it says about licences, and take the dates and limits from it before you fish.
