Fact Sheet for Little Pine Lagoon

Introduction:

Little Pine Lagoon is probably the best known fly fishing water in Australia. The lagoon was created by the erection of a low profile dam across the Little Pine River to divert water down Monpeelyata Canal to Lake Echo. The lagoon is shallow and weedy and is highly productive. The brown trout population is sustained entirely by natural recruitment with most fish being 0.5 – 1.5 kgs. Little Pine Lagoon is reserved for fly fishing only.

Fishing Information:

Early in the season (September – November) when water levels are moderately high, fish can be seen busy ‘tailing’ in the shallow margins. All of the lagoon’s shoreline will produce fish although the road shore and south-western and western shorelines are the most popular areas. Various wet flies and nymph patterns fished inert are successful. During summer (December – March) prolific hatches of mayfly occur across the entire lagoon and trout rise freely to take the emerging duns. Emerger fly patterns and various dry flies account for many fish. Polaroiding these cruising fish from a boat is an effective method. All the shoreline can be easily waded and boat fishing is popular, especially with a team of wet flies which often accounts for good bags of fish later in the season.

Fisheries Management Information:

Monitoring of this fishery is done using the Inland Fisheries Service Angler Postal Questionnaire to gauge changes in catch rates, harvest and angler effort from year to year. The fishery is managed as a high quality fly fishery for brown trout and as such there is a bag limit of five fish per angler per day.

Region:

Central

Other Fish:

The climbing galaxias (Galaxias brevipinnis), the spotted galaxias (G. truttaceus), and the Western paragalaxias (Paragalaxias julianus) have populations in the Little Pine River system. Whilst the galaxias species are likely to occur in low number in the Little Pine Lagoon the paragalaxias has not been recorded there.

Facilities:

There are three launching areas, with one significant boat ramp near the shack area, all ramps are accessed off the road that skirts the lake's eastern shore.

Regulations and Species