Imagery © Esri
Micalong Creek is a NSW trout water that runs into the Goodradigbee River, and the reason to fish it is the browns and rainbows stocked into it in recent seasons.
A dry fly with a nymph under it is a sensible first rig. Choose one of the access points on the access card and work upstream.
The current NSW trout guide decides when you can fish and what you can keep, so read it before you settle on a date.
In our experience, trout on any creek sit where the current gives them food and cover: the head of a pool where the run tips in, the seam beside faster water, an undercut bank, the slack behind a log or boulder. Even, shallow water holds fewer fish and spooks them first, so spend your time on the deeper water and walk past the rest.
NSW stocking records list brown trout and rainbow trout released into the creek, and the stocking chart shows the pattern. Rainbows are also recorded there. Stocked trout are usually the easiest to catch, and a fish that has stayed through a few seasons tends to be warier.
Atlas of Living Australia records also list spangled perch and twospine blackfish. Neither is your target, but they are worth knowing about if something small is holding under the flies.
The fly box is a guide's read. Trout usually feed on nymphs drifting near the bottom and on whatever lands on the surface, which in warm weather includes grasshoppers, beetles and ants off the bank. A few buoyant dries, a hopper and some bead-head nymphs cover most of it.
Settle the rules first: take any season for the creek from the current NSW trout guide. Within whatever it allows, NSW trout water usually fishes best from late spring into autumn. Summer is the time for hoppers along grassy 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 creek a day or two to drop and clear.
Travel light and fish upstream. 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 Royal Wulff with a 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. On deeper water, a Woolly Bugger stripped past cover can move a trout that will not come up.
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 first-aid kit, and watch your footing on wet rock and undercut banks. Water can rise after rain, so keep an eye on the sky and never wade a crossing you are unsure of.
No water-specific rule was found. Before you fish, read the current NSW Department of Primary Industries and Regional Development trout guide, check its trout-water and closed-waters lists for the creek, and take any season, bag and size limits and licence requirements from it.
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.
Sources: NSW Department of Primary Industries and Regional Development.
The year on this water
A year at a glance; check current rules
How well this water has been surveyed
3 capture records, 1 decade of 1 on file
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
64,000 fish in 13 records, 2020 to 2026
NSW Fish Stocking — ArcGIS site markers and linked histories. retrieved 2026-08-29.
Check the water operator or jurisdiction authority for current conditions, and read the water yourself when you arrive.
NSW stocking records list brown and rainbow trout released into the creek, and rainbows have also been recorded in it, so those are the fish to plan for. The stocking chart shows which seasons they went in.
No water-specific rule was found. Check the current NSW Department of Primary Industries and Regional Development trout guide, including its trout-water and closed-waters lists, and take any season, bag and size limits from it before you fish.
Pick one of the access points on the access card and fish from there. Treat those points as locations only, and read the signs and fences on the ground.
Atlas of Living Australia records list spangled perch and twospine blackfish in the creek. Trout are the reason to fish it.
