The Swampy is Australia's best trout river and we conducting drifts there from November through until April. Drive or fly up and fish this river with us. Taking bookings now.

The Schedule

As the Swampy is five hours drive from Melbourne, we fish it in two ways. Firstly we base ourselves up there for a few weeks, a couple of times a season. Once in November and again in March/April. This is when the fishing is best and as a result, the demand is highest.

We stay locally and meet clients at the dam wall each morning or pick them up from the airstrip which is also below the dam wall. This allows people on a tight schedule to fly up and back in a day and it also provides for those with more time to drive up and spend a few days in the region.

Outside of these two scheduled times (Nov-Mar/Apr) we still run trips to the Swampy on request. The cost of these trips is different to those scheduled.

The Swamp Plains River

In our opinion the Swampy Plain River at Khancoban N.S.W is Australia's best trout river. We have been drifting it now for about ten years and we can confidently say that it is without equal.

Expansive gravel bars and drop offs typify this wonderful river with much of it only accessible from the raft. Excellent indicator nymphing can be expected with a dry/nymph combination extremely effective. The opportunity to fish dry fly will undoubtedly appear at some time of the day with rising fish in mid-river bubble lines a common occurrence. Occasionally the need to work gravel bars across and down will arise but most of the time we will pull in behind the bar with the raft and employ our specially developed upstream nymphing techniques. Some very large fish have been taken this way. 

Browns average between 1.5-2.5lb with a good chance at fish between 3-5lb. Rainbows are caught at a lesser rate but are usually also of a good size and in great condition. Browns are most often found behind shallow gravel bars and also tucked in close to the edge. Rainbows are more often found out in the open and are prone to attacking the surface fly. The fishing is simply the best of any river in the country and while you won't catch huge bags of fish the ones you do catch are usually good.

One of the special attractions of this river is the excitement of fishing with large grasshopper patterns. Buried deep in the trout's brain is the response to the 'splat' of a large terrestrial. It is usually aggressive and the Swampy is famous for it. This makes a visit outside of the scheduled times well worth it with February often offering fishing of the highest calibre. Fishing with large size 8 rubber legged hopper patterns in the heat of the day can be outstanding.

Hatches of Kosciusko duns and caddisflies are also often superb. Evening rises can be a huge event with every fish in the river up and rising. The best evening rise sessions that we have ever experienced have been on this river with numerous fish rising until dark.

The special techniques we have developed for fishing from the raft have come from the experience gained by being Australia's longest established drift boat operators. We drift the Swampy regularly and the Goulburn everyday during times of high flow and have developed an array of techniques to enable us to cope with any situation that arises..

Details

Drifts start at Khancoban Pondage at 9am and finish on dark (about 9pm) at Bringenbrong Bridge. A maximum of two anglers per drift with a cost of $400 including G.S.T. per angler is applicable and includes all flies and any tackle needed, drinks, snacks, a big lunch and 12 hours guided float fishing the best river in the country. Please phone/email for more information or to book.

DECEMBER 2008   Booked           Available   Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday Saturday Sunday N/A 2 3 4 5 6 7 N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A   FOR INFORMATION ON FLY-RAFT PACKAGES CLICK HERE

Previous Trip Photos

See the Nov 2002 Trip photos! Click Here

See the Nov 2001 Trip photos! Click Here

For those with a Broadband/Cable or work connection download the Swampy Promo clip. Click on the Swampy Video Link to download our promotional feature of fly fishing the Swampy.