Every Australian fly angler who reads has fished the Macquarie in their head before they fish it in their waders, because this is the river the island's dry-fly writing was made on: a slow, clear Midlands meadow stream where a brown trout drifts up under a red spinner in the October sun, looks at it for a full second, and decides. Inland Fisheries Service rates the Tinamirakuna / Macquarie among Tasmania's finest trout rivers, and manages it as a wild fishery; nothing has been stocked into it in fifteen years and the browns that live in its pools were born there. It rises in the hills east of the Midlands, gathers the Tooms River, drops past the Blackman junction into the meadow country at Ross, winds through Campbell Town's Elizabeth River, the Isis and the Lake River to the Brumbys Creek junction below Cressy, and joins the South Esk at Longford after a hundred and ninety-five kilometres. It is not a big river in the numbers. The Trefusis gauge has watched the upper river since 1979 and its median never reaches a cubic metre a second, which is why the wadeable band on the chart below is so narrow and why the fishing is in the pools and the glides, not the riffles. Spring is spinners and duns, summer is early, late and polaroiding, autumn is hoppers tight to the grass. The three stretch pages take the river in turn, and the rules change where the authority changes them, at the Brumbys junction.
Tinamirakuna / Macquarie River
Imagery © Esri
Not published
Choose your stretch
Choose your stretch of the Macquarie River
-
Stretch 1 · 90.3 km Headwaters to Ross The upper Macquarie — ninety kilometres from the hills through the Tooms and Blackman River junctions to the Midland Highway bridge at Ross, the steepest water on the river, small wild browns in the pools, and the Trefusis gauge with its record since 1979. Rainbow Trout Brown TroutLive gauge
-
Stretch 2 · 82.8 km Ross to Brumbys Creek The meadow water — eighty-three kilometres of slow, clear Midlands river from the Ross bridge past Campbell Town's Elizabeth River, the Isis and the Lake River to the Brumbys Creek junction, red spinners in spring, hoppers in autumn, and two gauges bracketing the Elizabeth junction. Rainbow Trout Brown TroutLive gauge
-
Stretch 3 · 21.7 km Brumbys Creek to the South Esk The lower Macquarie — twenty-two kilometres from the Brumbys Creek junction past the Cressy pumps to Longford, where the river ends in the South Esk, wild browns with rainbows among them, the Cressy gauge, and the extended season that keeps this water open to the end of May. Rainbow Trout Brown TroutLive gauge
River map
River map of Macquarie River
When things happen
When things happen
The year on this water
A guide's calendar, not a rulebook
- Winter water · Jun to Sep The Trefusis gauge runs at its highest from June to September, with the wet years ten and twenty times the summer flow. Worms, wets and nymphs while it drops.
- Red spinners · Oct to Dec The famous spring hatch on the meadow water. IFS names it the feature of the season, and the fish look up for it.
- Dry-fly spring · Oct to Dec The river settles into the wadeable band and the browns rise to spinners and duns in the long glides.
- Early and late, and polaroiding · Dec to Feb Low, clear summer water. The first and last hours, and a slow walk up a bright glide looking for the fish before it sees you.
- Hoppers on the grass · Feb to Apr Late in the season the grasshoppers come off the paddocks, and a hopper tight to the bank is how the river finishes.
Water and habitat
A hundred and ninety-five kilometres of mainstem falling five hundred metres, most of it in the first sixty. The fall of the river drawn on this page shows an upper river that comes off the hills quickly through the Tooms and Blackman country and then, from Ross onward, a long meadow river dropping barely a metre a kilometre across the Midlands floor to Longford. The bank survey from space describes the country: a third of the corridor under crops, a fifth in native grass, two-fifths open woodland and almost no dense timber, which is farmland with willows and poplars along a slow river.
Headwaters to Ross is the upper river: ninety kilometres from the source through the Tooms River junction and the Blackman River junction to the Midland Highway bridge at Ross, with the Trefusis gauge on it.
Ross to Brumbys Creek is the meadow water most people mean: eighty-three kilometres past Campbell Town, where the Elizabeth comes in, the Isis and the Lake River junctions, down to where Brumbys Creek joins. Two gauges bracket the Elizabeth junction.
Brumbys Creek to the South Esk is the lower river: twenty-two kilometres past the Cressy pumps to Longford, where the Macquarie ends in the South Esk. The season is longer here, and rainbows appear.
Fish and forage
Brown trout, wild. IFS manages the river as a wild trout fishery and the browns dominate; rainbow trout are present in the lower Macquarie and the lower reaches of Brumbys Creek. The survey record, drawn on this page, is thick with browns electrofished through the 1990s and 2000s. The only stocking IFS lists is a single release of brown trout fingerlings in 2011. Redfin perch and tench live in the system, both pest fish, and IFS asks that any caught be killed humanely and disposed of rather than returned.
What the trout eat is what a meadow river grows. The red spinner mayfly is the hatch of the year in spring, with duns and caenids on the glides through summer and black spinners in autumn. From late summer the grasshoppers come off the paddocks, and IFS names grasshopper fishing the feature of the late season. Caddis in the evening riffles, and a great deal of weed-bed food the fish take unseen.
When to fish it
Read the river's year drawn on this page before you decide. The Trefusis record puts the high water in winter and early spring: from June to September the median doubles and the wet years run at ten and twenty times the summer flow. IFS says the early season, when levels are high, is the time for worms, wet flies and lures, and the fly angler's version of that is a nymph or a wet swung through the pools while the river drops.
From October the river settles into the wadeable band and the dry fly comes into its own, with the red spinner hatches the feature of spring. Summer runs low and clear, and IFS recommends fishing early and late in the day, though polaroiding in bright light can pay. Late in the season the grasshoppers are the story, and the fish that would not look at a spinner in February will take a hopper against the bank in March. The upper river closes at the start of May; the river below the Brumbys junction runs to the end of it.
How to fish it
Slow, clear water and educated fish. Fish upstream, move slowly, spend more time looking than casting, and give the first cast to the edge under the far bank rather than the middle of the pool. A four or five weight, a floating line, a long leader tapering to fine tippet, and the discipline to wait for a rise before you cast to it.
For the spinners and duns, a parachute Adams or a Klinkhammer in the size of the insect, drifted without drag through the lane the fish is using. A hopper tight to the grass through the afternoons of February and March. When nothing is showing, a dry-dropper with a slim Pheasant Tail hung under a small dry along the undercuts and weed edges, or a Hare's Ear fished deep through the head of a pool. In the high water of early spring, a Woolly Bugger or a wet swung across the tail of a pool is the honest fly.
Access and safety
The river runs almost entirely through private farmland. IFS has negotiated foot access at many points, from Longford and Cressy at the bottom and from the Midland Highway towns along its length, and marks it with signs; from some of those points landowners have allowed access for considerable distances up and downstream. Where access is not signed you must ask the landowner, and IFS is plain that the signs are binding. Carry the IFS Anglers Access brochure for the Macquarie and Lake Rivers, walk the perimeter of any crop rather than through it, leave gates as you find them and stay off fences. This access is a privilege that depends on the last angler's manners.
The hazards are a slow river's: deep pools under the willows, soft cut banks, and cold water in the early season. In the high water of winter and spring the meadow river can be over its banks and the pools unreadable; the gauges on the stretch pages say when it has dropped.
Regulations
Inland Fisheries Service states the rules for this river in two parts, split at the Brumbys Creek junction. On both, the minimum size is the same, the bag is small, and all methods are permitted; on the upper river the season runs from the first Saturday in August to the start of May, and on the lower river from the Brumbys junction to the South Esk it runs to the end of May. Each stretch page states the shape of the rule that applies to it, and the rule that keeps the lower river open longer also applies to the lower Brumbys, the Meander and the South Esk. An inland angling licence is required on every inland water in the state.
Take the numbers and the dates from the current Tasmanian Inland Fishing Code and the IFS A to Z page for the river before you fish. They move with the season, and this page does not carry them.
What the record shows
What the record shows
The river's year
Daily flow at Macquarie River(18217) [macquarie River At Trefusis], every year 1979 to 2026
How often it runs this high
16,808 days at Macquarie River(18217) [macquarie River At Trefusis], 1979 to 2026
The fall of the river
Elevation along the river, source to end
The banks, seen from space
Land cover in the 120 m beside the water, Landsat 2023 to 2024 to 2025
Questions anglers ask
Why does the season change at Brumbys Creek?
Inland Fisheries Service states one set of rules for the Macquarie upstream of the Brumbys Creek junction and another downstream of it to the South Esk. The sizes, bag and methods are the same, but the lower river stays open to the end of May while the upper river closes at the start of it. That junction is the bound between the second and third stretch pages, so each stretch states the rule that applies to it.
Which gauge should I read?
Four stations sit on the river and each shows on its stretch page under Conditions. Trefusis reads the upper river and its record since 1979 is the river's year drawn on this page. Two stations bracket the Elizabeth River junction on the meadow water, and the Cressy pumps read the lower river. All four read flow and height.
How big a river is it?
Long and slow rather than big. The Trefusis median sits under a cubic metre a second in every month of the year, and the wadeable band on the chart is narrow. It is a river of deep pools and meadow glides between short riffles, wide enough to need a long cast and clear enough to need a careful one.
Where can I get in?
From Longford and Cressy at the bottom and from the Midland Highway towns along its length, through access IFS negotiated with landowners and marked with signs. Where there is no sign you must ask. The IFS Anglers Access brochure for the river is the map to carry.