The Meander begins as a mountain stream and stays one for exactly as long as it takes to reach the lake. From the plateau of the Great Western Tiers at thirteen hundred metres it falls to under four hundred at the head of Huntsman Lake in thirteen kilometres, dropping over Meander Falls in its first three and taking in Mother Cummings Rivulet at ten and Sales Rivulet at the lake's edge, and the fall of the river drawn on this page shows a line that is nearly vertical for its first five kilometres and steep for the rest. Inland Fisheries Service describes it plainly: clear, boulder-strewn fast water through State Forest, with small resident browns that take some catching. That is the whole of it and it is enough. There is no gauge, no dam release and no farmland, only pocket water between boulders, myrtle and eucalypt shade, and fish that have seen few flies and still refuse a bad cast. It is the one piece of the river Huntsman Lake did not change. Come in the warm months with a short rod and a dry-dropper, walk in from Meander Falls Road, and fish it as you would any alpine creek: one cast to a pocket, a step upstream, and no expectation of a big fish. What you get instead is a wild river at its start, and a long afternoon nobody will interrupt.
Headwaters to Huntsman Lake
Imagery © Esri
Not published
River map
River map of Meander River
When things happen
When things happen
The year on this water
A guide's calendar, not a rulebook
- Snowmelt and winter rain · Jun to Oct Off the Tiers at thirteen hundred metres the water is cold and high until well into spring. Leave it alone until the Deloraine gauge drops back into the band.
- Dry-dropper season · Nov to Apr Pocket water in a mountain stream. One cast per pocket, a small dry over a tungsten nymph, and a step upstream.
- Caddis and stoneflies · Nov to Mar What a fast boulder stream grows. A bushy dry that floats in broken water is the imitation.
- Beetles off the forest · Dec to Feb Summer beetles falling from the eucalypts and myrtle onto the pockets. A Royal Wulff does the job of all of them.
Water and habitat
Thirteen kilometres of mainstem from the source on the Tiers to the inflow of Huntsman Lake, and the steepest water on the Meander by a distance. The profile on this page falls from about thirteen hundred metres to seven hundred and seventy in the first five kilometres, over Meander Falls at kilometre two and a half, then to four hundred and sixty at the Mother Cummings Rivulet junction and three hundred and ninety-eight at the lake. Nothing else on the river is like it. The bed is boulders and bedrock, the water clear and fast, the pockets short.
State Forest the whole way, and the bank survey on the whole-river page reads the upper corridor as dense timber. That is the character of this stretch: shade, cold water, and a stream you fish in the gaps between trees.
Fish and forage
Brown trout, wild and small, resident in the pockets. IFS says they take some catching, and they do; a headwater fish that lives in fast water this clear has no patience with a dragging fly. Nothing is stocked here and nothing needs to be.
The forage is a mountain stream's: caddis and stoneflies in the broken water, mayfly in the few slower pools, and in summer the beetles that fall from the forest onto the water. The fish are opportunists and a well-floated dry is rarely refused for being the wrong pattern.
When to fish it
Late. At thirteen hundred metres the water is cold and high from June into spring, and there is no gauge on this stretch to tell you when it has settled; read the Deloraine bridge on the whole-river page, and when it sits in the wadeable band assume the headwaters have dropped too. From November to the close of the season at the start of May the pockets are fishable, and the warm months are the best of it: summer beetles, evening caddis, and low clear water that concentrates the fish.
It is a summer and autumn stretch. In a wet spring, fish the regulated water below the dam instead.
How to fish it
Small-stream fishing in its purest form. A short three or four weight, a floating line, a leader no longer than the rod, and a dry-dropper: a Royal Wulff or a Stimulator that floats in broken water, a tungsten Pheasant Tail eighteen inches under it. One cast to each pocket, drift it through, and move. The fish are in the soft water behind and beside the boulders and in the tails of the small pools, never in the thin white water between.
Keep low, wade little and cast short. In water this clear the first drift is the one that counts.
Access and safety
State Forest, so nobody's paddock to cross, but the way in is on foot. Meander Falls Road, an unsealed forestry road, runs up the valley close to the river's middle kilometres; the track to Meander Falls leaves from its end. Above the falls the stream is for walkers, not anglers.
The hazards are a mountain stream's: slippery boulders, cold water, and rain on the Tiers that lifts the river fast. Studded soles and a staff, and a look at the forecast for the Tiers before you walk in. Phone coverage is poor in the valley.
Regulations
This stretch lies above Strath Bridge, so it carries the rules Inland Fisheries Service states for the upper Meander: a minimum size, a small daily bag, all methods permitted, and a season from the first Saturday in August to the start of May. An inland angling licence is required.
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, and this page does not carry them.
What the record shows
What the record shows
More river data The fall of the whole Meander River and its bank survey, with this stretch marked
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
Where does this stretch end?
Where the river runs into Huntsman Lake, about thirteen kilometres from the source. The lake is its own water and is not part of this page; the regulated river below the dam is the next stretch.
Is there a gauge?
Not on this stretch. The nearest is the Deloraine bridge, thirty kilometres down and below the dam, so it reads Huntsman Lake's releases rather than this mountain water. It is still the best warning you have: if Deloraine is running high after rain, the headwaters are higher.
Which rules apply?
This stretch is above Strath Bridge, so it carries the rules IFS states for the upper Meander: a minimum size, a small daily bag, all methods, and a season from the first Saturday in August to the start of May. Take the numbers from the current Inland Fishing Code.