Stewarts Brook is a small stream in the Hunter River catchment of NSW, and the reason to drive to it is the trout: NSW stocking records show browns and rainbows released into it season after season.
Think of it as one piece of water. The brook runs down to join the Hunter River, and in our experience it is simplest to fish it as one stream that gets smaller and tighter the further up you walk.
The trip worth making is the brook itself in the warmer months, for brown and rainbow trout. Choose one of the access points on the access card, walk to the water and fish upstream with a dry and a small nymph under it. The current NSW trout guide and its trout-water lists decide when you can fish and what you can keep, so read them before you settle on a date. Spend your time on the pools and the deeper runs and walk quickly past thin, even water where a trout has nowhere to hide. On a bright summer day, start early or come back for the last hour of light, when small-stream trout feed with the least caution and a dry fly gets its best chance.
In our experience a small stream's top end can hold fish that see few flies, but treat it as an extension of a day on the main water, not a trip of its 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 running down to a big river. On water this size, cover matters more than almost anything else. Where the banks are open, trout see you coming across the grass; where they are shaded, overhanging growth gives fish somewhere to sit and drops food into the water.
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. Both have gone in right up to the latest season, so for the fishing that likely means a run of young stocked fish of both kinds, with the odd brown that has survived a few years and learned to be careful. A stream this size usually keeps most trout modest.
Atlas of Living Australia records also list two small native fish in the brook, mountain galaxias and western carp gudgeon. A little fish in the water is a good reason to carry a small streamer alongside the nymphs.
The rest of 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, and 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 rules first: take any season for the brook from the current NSW trout guide. Within whatever it allows, a small NSW trout stream usually 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 busier. 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 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 the deeper, slower pools, 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. A small brook can rise quickly after rain, so keep an eye on the sky and never wade a crossing you are unsure of.
Regulations
Before you fish, read the current NSW Department of Primary Industries and Regional Development trout guide, check its trout-water lists and closed-waters list for the brook, and take any season, bag and size limits and licence requirements from it.
