NSW · Gwydir River

Gwydir River

Imagery © Esri

info

Before you rely on this page

Access here has not been confirmed on the ground — treat every way in as unverified.

The Gwydir is a New England river where Murray cod, golden perch and freshwater catfish have all been recorded, and the reason to drive to it is a big native fish on a fly worked slowly through deep water.

One structure shapes the whole river. Copeton Dam sits across it and holds back a large lake, which cuts the river into two parts: the river above the lake's backed-up water, and the river below the dam wall, which carries on until it joins the Barwon.

That gives you two trips, and the one to start with is the natives. Cod, golden perch and catfish have all been recorded in the river, and NSW has put cod and golden perch into it over several recent seasons, which the stocking chart sets out. In our experience the warm months, roughly October to April, are the time to go, and a heavy streamer is the fly to carry. The access card shows one boat ramp; check its details there before you plan a launch. Read the current NSW fishing guide before you fish.

The second trip is trout. Rainbow trout have been recorded in the river, and NSW has stocked both rainbows and browns over recent seasons. In our experience trout in a New England river do best in the cooler, faster water higher in a system rather than in the warm lowland pools, so look for them where the river still has some pace. Check the current NSW fishing guide for the stretch you intend to fish before you drive up.

If you have one weekend, make it the natives: a dark streamer, the deepest water you can reach, and the last hour of light.

Water and habitat

The gradient chart shows how the river's fall changes along the mapped stretch, and the flow chart shows how often it runs high or low. Read them together before you pick a stretch. In our experience natives in a river like this sit in the deeper holes, beside fallen timber and along undercut banks, and move up onto shallower edges to feed as the light goes. Steeper, faster sections are where you would look for trout.

The bank cover chart gives a sense of how much shade and timber lines the water. Where there is cover, fish the shaded side first.

Fish and forage

Murray cod, golden perch and freshwater catfish are the natives worth a fly. Rainbow trout have been recorded, and brown trout have been stocked. River blackfish have been recorded too. Redfin and European carp are present, and you may meet either.

The small fish recorded here matter more for your fly box. Australian smelt, bony bream, carp gudgeons, spangled perch, rainbowfish and several hardyheads are all on the list, and in our experience they are the everyday food of the bigger natives. That points you at a streamer in dull, natural colours rather than anything bright.

When to fish it

For natives, the warm months from about October to April are the best bet in our experience, with the early morning and the last light usually the most productive times of day. In our experience cold water slows cod and golden perch right down. For trout, check the current NSW guide for any season that applies before you plan the trip. Before any visit, look at the live conditions card: a river running high and coloured fishes poorly for a fly.

How to fish it

For natives, a dark Woolly Bugger or a similar streamer in size 2 to 6, on an intermediate or sinking line, is a good start. Cast tight to timber, let the fly sink, and crawl it back with long, slow strips and pauses. Cod often take on the pause. A heavy tippet saves flies and fish around snags.

For trout, a 5 or 6 weight with a nymph under an indicator, or a hopper or beetle pattern on warm afternoons, is a sound approach in the faster water.

Access and safety

The access card shows one boat ramp. Treat it as a way to reach the water, not as permission to cross private ground. If you are unsure who owns a bank, ask before you walk it. As on any inland river, check the conditions before you set out and give a rising, coloured river a miss.

Regulations

Read the current NSW fishing guide from the Department of Primary Industries and Regional Development before you fish, and check what applies to the stretch and the species you are after.

1 named access site

These authority-listed points are separate from the mapped track intersections above. Some were inspected and some are public boat-ramp records; each row says which. A listing does not grant permission across private land, so check closures, signs and gates when you arrive.

Bingara Boat Ramp Public boat-ramp record · Access mode not stated

Sources: Transport for NSW.

When things happen

The guide's calendar for this water

The year on this water

A year at a glance; check current rules

Slow streamer through deep water for natives · Oct to Apr A guide's read. A dark Woolly Bugger, size 2 to 6, crawled past timber and along the bottom of the deeper holes is a sound first fly for cod, golden perch or catfish.
Small native baitfish · Oct to Apr Australian smelt, bony bream, carp gudgeons, spangled perch and several hardyheads have been recorded in the river. In our experience small fish like these are what the bigger natives eat through the warm months.

What the record shows

Flows, river gradient, changing water levels, fish surveys and stocking

The river's year

Daily flow at Gwydir River at Pallamallawa, every year 1972 to 2026

54 years of the gauge, week by week. The dark band is the middle half of all years, the pale band nine years in ten, the line the median. The shaded strip is the typical range: the band the river sits in about half of all days. In a typical year the river sits in it from early March to late November, and runs higher than that from early December through the turn of the year to late February. Whether a given day is one to wade is a call made at the bank, not a reading off this chart. Median flow peaks in mid January and bottoms out in late June. Flow and temperature are measured at different stations; this chart shows flow only.

Source: Bureau of Meteorology.

Source details and licence

Bureau of Meteorology — Water Data Online series catalogue (Snowy/Monaro stations). Bureau of Meteorology, © Commonwealth of Australia. Licensed from the Commonwealth of Australia under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International licence. retrieved 2026-08-12.

How often it runs this high

19,648 days at Gwydir River at Pallamallawa, 1972 to 2026

Read it left to right: the river runs above the flow on the left edge almost never, and above the flow on the right edge almost always. Half of all days sit below 6.8 m³/s. The shaded band is the typical range, where it sits about half the time; it runs higher than that one day in three and above the high-flow mark about one day in seven. These are frequency bands drawn from the record, not a measured limit — judge the water when you get there.

Source: Bureau of Meteorology.

Source details and licence

The fall of the river

Elevation along the river, source to end

Falls 3 m over 20 km, fine-grained bed for much of its length.

fine-grained · 100%

Headwater: 147 m
Outlet: 144 m
Typical drop: 0.2 m/km
Steepest sampled stretch: 0.5 m/km, near 10 km

Hover the profile for the reading at any kilometre.

Source: Geoscience Australia.

Source details and licence

Geoscience Australia — 1 second SRTM-derived DEM-H v1.0 (NCI tile store). Geoscience Australia, 1 second SRTM-derived DEM-H v1.0, © Commonwealth of Australia, CC BY 4.0. retrieved 2026-08-16.

Bed material: NSW Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water (Water, Surface Water Science).

Source details and licence

NSW River Styles spatial dataset — geomorphic character and dominant bed material. NSW River Styles spatial dataset, © State Government of NSW and NSW Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water 2023. retrieved 2026-08-21.

Gauge pins identify the monitoring stations. The slope shows how steeply the river falls; it does not show rapids or safe wading routes.

The banks, seen from space

Land cover in the 120 m beside the water, Landsat 2023 to 2024 to 2025

dense forest open woodland scattered trees and scrub native grass and heath farmed or cleared bare ground lake

Along the river itself about 21% of the bank is under trees, 76% is native grass or heath and 2% is farmed. The most wooded stretch is 20 to 20.5 km from the source; the most open is 0 to 5 km. A satellite reads the canopy, not the ground beneath it, so treat this as a read of the country, not a survey of every bank.

Source: Geoscience Australia / Digital Earth Australia.

Source details and licence

DEA Land Cover (Landsat) — Level 4 classification, continental mosaics. © Commonwealth of Australia (Geoscience Australia). DEA Land Cover (Landsat), Digital Earth Australia. retrieved 2026-08-19.

How well this water has been surveyed

375 capture records, 3 decades of 3 on file

electrofishing (boat), 235 records electrofishing (backpack), 73 records fyke netting, 2 records seine netting, 38 records other netting, 2 records trapping, 25 records

Capture records by decade — electrofishing, netting, trapping and rotenone surveys only; a sighting, an eDNA water sample or a stocking release is not a capture and is not counted here. A record is not an abundance estimate, and a decade with no bar is a decade with no capture survey on file, not evidence the water was empty.

Source: Atlas of Living Australia.

Source details and licence

Atlas of Living Australia — freshwater fish occurrence records (open licences, with coordinates). Occurrence records from the Atlas of Living Australia and its contributing datasets, including the Victorian Biodiversity Atlas, NSW BioNet Atlas, Sustainable Rivers Audit, Murray-Darling Basin fish monitoring programs, OZCAM museum collections and iNaturalist Australia. Each record carries its own licence and originating dataset. retrieved 2026-08-13.

Stocking on record

173,371 fish in 72 records, 2020 to 2026

Golden Perch, 54,239 across 31 records Rainbow Trout, 48,000 across 8 records Murray Cod, 43,132 across 29 records Brown Trout, 28,000 across 4 records

Stocked in 7 of the 7 years from 2020 to 2026. These are site-by-year totals, which can combine more than one release. A record is not a promise that stocking continues, and not evidence of what is in the water now.

Source: NSW Department of Primary Industries and Regional Development (Fisheries).

Source details and licence

NSW Fish Stocking — ArcGIS site markers and linked histories. retrieved 2026-08-29.