Access here has not been confirmed on the ground — treat every way in as unverified.
The Namoi is a native-fish river in northern New South Wales, and the reason to drive to it is a Murray cod you can see before you cast. FlyLife's writers describe sight-casting surface flies to cruising cod in shin-deep, clear water through a gorge in Warrabah National Park.
The river comes in two parts. One is the gorge, a walking water of boulders and rock pools. Away from the gorge it has weirs, including one at Manilla and another at Lake Keepit, and it runs on to join the Barwon.
That gives you two trips, and the easier one is the weir water.
Start on the open river away from the gorge for golden perch and cod, in our experience best through the warmer months, driving in to one of the ways in the access card names, which include a boat ramp. Both fish are stocked here, so there should be young fish in the system as well as older ones. Fish the snags and deep bends with a slow streamer. Stay clear of the two weir closures, which in practice means no fishing within 50 metres either side of the upper weir face beside Chaffey Park at Manilla, and none for 150 metres below the weir face at Lake Keepit. Check the current NSW guide for the Murray cod season before you plan.
The gorge is the trip worth the drive, and it is a walk. FlyLife's writers say the fishing improves the further upstream of the usual starting point you are willing to walk, and describe the river there fishing in every season, with summer best. They put the reach at around 20 kilometres, which they say takes an experienced walker the better part of two days end to end, so choose your stretch rather than trying to see it all. Go in summer with a surface fly, walk a long way before your first serious cast, and plan on sight fishing.
Pick your trip, then check the current NSW guide for the cod season before you leave home.
Water and habitat
The gorge is the headline water. FlyLife's writers describe it widening below the Muluerindie hut, with large boulders splitting the river into a chain of rock pools of different sizes and depths. In our experience, cod in water like this sit where a pool deepens beside a boulder, or cruise the shallow margins when it is warm, and in clear water you often see them before they see you.
The same writers say that in drought the gaps between fishable pools above Muluerindie grow much longer, though the open water that remains still holds cod. In a dry year you walk further between casts; you do not have to go home.
Away from the gorge the river runs through weirs on its way to the Barwon. The gradient profile shows how its character changes, and the bank cover chart shows what lines it. On slower water, in our experience, timber, undercut banks and the outside of bends hold the fish.
Fish and forage
Murray cod and golden perch are the fish, and the stocking chart shows the releases of both season by season. For you that likely means a mix of recently stocked fish that come readily, and older settled fish that have seen a few flies. Freshwater catfish and spangled perch have been recorded too, and European carp and goldfish are present.
The small fish recorded here are the forage: Australian smelt, bony bream, carp gudgeons, hardyheads and Murray River rainbowfish. That points your fly box at small, pale baitfish patterns on the open river, and at big surface flies where cod are cruising the shallows. A dark Woolly Bugger covers the rest, and it is a good bet when nothing is showing.
When to fish it
FlyLife's writers describe the gorge fishing in every season, with summer especially good, so plan the surface-fly trip for the warm months. In our experience cod and golden perch on slower water are also most active when the water warms, from late spring through summer and into early autumn. As the water cools, slow down and fish deeper with a streamer. The Murray cod season comes from the current NSW guide, so check it before you plan any cod trip.
How to fish it
For the gorge, carry an eight weight with a floating line and a short, heavy leader. Walk the edge of each pool slowly and look before you cast. FlyLife's writers describe a surface fly for cruising cod, and in drought a slowly retrieved fly still takes fish in the pools that remain. Put the fly well ahead of a moving fish and let it sit before you give it any life. A cod that follows and turns away is often telling you to go slower.
Away from the gorge, fish a sinking-tip line and a weighted streamer tight to timber and along the outside bends, with long pauses on the retrieve. Golden perch will take a smaller fly than cod, so drop down to a size 4 or 6 if you are only getting follows.
Access and safety
The access card names the ways in, including a boat ramp. Treat them as places to reach the water, not as permission to cross private ground.
For the gorge, FlyLife's writers describe a starting point in Warrabah National Park and the Muluerindie hut, which they say can be booked through NSW National Parks, with steps down to the water. Check current access and bookings with NSW National Parks before you go. As on any walk into a bush gorge, carry more water than you think you need, wear boots that grip wet rock, and tell someone where you are going and when you expect to be back.
Regulations
All fishing methods are prohibited on the Namoi River and its tributaries from within 50 metres upstream to 50 metres downstream of the weir face at the upper weir adjacent to Chaffey Park, Manilla. All methods are also prohibited within 150 metres downstream of the weir face at Lake Keepit. Both closures are listed in the NSW Department of Primary Industries and Regional Development closed-waters notices.
Beyond those two closures, no water-specific rule was found. Check the current NSW Department of Primary Industries and Regional Development recreational fishing guide before you fish, for the Murray cod season, the licence, and the bag and size limits.
9 named access sites
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.
Billys HoleInspected access site · Foot access · National Park
Boundary HoleInspected access site · Foot access · National Park
Gun HoleInspected access site · Foot access · National Park
Surface flies for cod in the gorge· Nov to MarA guide's read. FlyLife's writers single out summer in the Warrabah gorge, and a surface fly for cruising cod is the approach they describe. Check the current NSW guide for the Murray cod season before you plan the trip.
Slow streamer through the deeper pools· Mar to MayA guide's read. When fish stop looking up, a dark Woolly Bugger, size 2 to 6, crawled slowly through the deepest pool you can find is a good bet for cod and golden perch.
Small native baitfish· Oct to AprAustralian smelt, bony bream, carp gudgeons, hardyheads and rainbowfish have all been recorded in the river. In our experience, when the water is warm they are the everyday food for cod and golden perch, so a small, pale streamer is rarely wrong.
What the record shows
Flows, river gradient, changing water levels, fish surveys and stocking
What the record shows
The river's year
Daily flow at Namoi River at downstream Keepit Dam, every year 1973 to 2026
Swipe to see the rest of the chart.
53 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 early October, 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 mid July. The orange line is median water temperature, from about 11° in the coldest weeks to 24° in the warmest.
19,375 days at Namoi River at downstream Keepit Dam, 1973 to 2026
Swipe to see the rest of the chart.
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 0.6 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.
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 forestopen woodlandscattered trees and scrubnative grass and heathfarmed or clearedbare groundlake
Along the river itself about 63% of the bank is under trees, 17% is native grass or heath and 20% is farmed. The most wooded stretch is 400 to 450 km from the source; the most open is 250 to 300 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.
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.
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
211,014 fish in 81 records, 2020 to 2026
Golden Perch, 131,756 across 40 recordsMurray Cod, 79,258 across 41 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.
Conditions
What the gauges say
water_dropNamoi River at Gunnedah
River flow
waves
m³/s
history
No reading shown: No reading has been captured for this gauge yet, so none is shown.
Gauge height
straighten
m
history
No reading shown: No reading has been captured for this gauge yet, so none is shown.
Water temperature
thermostat
°C
history
No reading shown: No reading has been captured for this gauge yet, so none is shown.
water_dropNamoi River at North Cuerindi
River flow
waves
m³/s
history
No reading shown: No reading has been captured for this gauge yet, so none is shown.
Gauge height
straighten
m
history
No reading shown: No reading has been captured for this gauge yet, so none is shown.
Water temperature
thermostat
°C
history
No reading shown: No reading has been captured for this gauge yet, so none is shown.
water_dropNamoi River at downstream Keepit Dam
River flow
waves
m³/s
history
No reading shown: No reading has been captured for this gauge yet, so none is shown.
Gauge height
straighten
m
history
No reading shown: No reading has been captured for this gauge yet, so none is shown.
Water temperature
thermostat
°C
history
No reading shown: No reading has been captured for this gauge yet, so none is shown.
water_dropNamoi River at Boggabri
River flow
waves
m³/s
history
No reading shown: No reading has been captured for this gauge yet, so none is shown.
Gauge height
straighten
m
history
No reading shown: No reading has been captured for this gauge yet, so none is shown.
Water temperature
thermostat
°C
history
No reading shown: No reading has been captured for this gauge yet, so none is shown.
water_dropNamoi River at Bugilbone (Riverview)
River flow
waves
m³/s
history
No reading shown: No reading has been captured for this gauge yet, so none is shown.
Gauge height
straighten
m
history
No reading shown: No reading has been captured for this gauge yet, so none is shown.
Water temperature
thermostat
°C
history
No reading shown: No reading has been captured for this gauge yet, so none is shown.
Murray cod and golden perch are the targets, and both have been stocked here as well as recorded in surveys. Freshwater catfish and spangled perch have also been recorded, and European carp are present.
Is there anywhere I cannot fish?+
Yes. All fishing is closed from 50 metres upstream to 50 metres downstream of the face of the upper weir beside Chaffey Park at Manilla, and for 150 metres downstream of the weir face at Lake Keepit. Both closures cover the river and its tributaries within those limits.
Is there a closed season, bag or size limit?+
No season, bag or size rule specific to the Namoi was found beyond the two weir closures. Take the Murray cod season and the bag and size limits from the current NSW Department of Primary Industries and Regional Development recreational fishing guide before you fish.
Can I stay near the gorge?+
FlyLife's writers describe Muluerindie, a stone hut run by NSW National Parks above the gorge in Warrabah National Park, with steps down to the river. Check with NSW National Parks for bookings and current access before you go.
Where do I get in?+
The access card names the ways in, including a boat ramp. Treat them as places to reach the water, not as permission to cross private ground.
