VIC · Yarra

Yarra River

Imagery © Esri

The upper Yarra is a wild brown trout river close to Melbourne, and it is underrated. It runs out of Upper Yarra Reservoir, so you are fishing a tailwater, not a rain-fed creek.

Start around Warburton. FlyLife's writers put the best trout water around and upstream of Warburton, Millgrove and Yarra Junction. Come when the river is at moderate height and clear, and fish a dry fly with a nymph.

Water and habitat

Below the reservoir the river is a tailwater on its way to Port Phillip Bay. Around Warburton it runs over freestone, gravel and bedrock, with fallen timber for fish to sit in. Environmental water can be released from the Upper Yarra, Maroondah and O'Shannassy reservoirs to support downstream river reaches.

Fish and forage

Brown trout are the fish to plan around, and FlyLife describes a good head of wild browns. The Yarra also holds Australian grayling, which will take a fly, and the wider river carries a long list of natives and introduced fish. Macquarie perch support one of Victoria's largest and most significant populations here; treat them as a fish to know about and check the Victorian Fisheries Authority guide before you target one.

When to fish it

Your best day is a moderate, clear river. Check levels and recent rainfall before you go, as you would on any river. In our experience, when it drops and clears, it is worth the drive.

How to fish it

A dry fly and a nymph are the two tools FlyLife points to, and either works when the river is at moderate height and clear. Work the timber and the bedrock lies with a careful approach, and give each likely spot a few drifts before you move.

Access and safety

FlyLife's writers say walking and bike trails along the river make access easy. Treat that as description, not permission, and respect any fence or sign. As on any bush river, tell someone where you are going, and watch your footing on wet rock and around fallen timber.

Regulations

No water-specific rule was found. Before you fish, read the current Victorian Fisheries Authority (State of Victoria) inland angling guide, including its closed-waters list, and take any season, bag and size limits and licence requirements from it.

When things happen

The guide's calendar for this water

The year on this water

A year at a glance; check current rules

Dry fly and nymph at a moderate, clear river · Jan to Dec FlyLife's writers describe the Yarra as consistently good for dry fly and nymph when the river is at moderate height and clear. Pick your day by the river, not the month.

What the record shows

Flows, river gradient, changing water levels, fish surveys and stocking

How well this water has been surveyed

4,925 capture records, 7 decades of 7 on file

electrofishing (boat), 2,495 records electrofishing (backpack), 832 records electrofishing (other), 805 records fyke netting, 244 records gill netting, 28 records seine netting, 94 records other netting, 68 records trapping, 338 records piscicide (rotenone), 21 records

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.

Source: Atlas of Living Australia.

Source details and licence

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.