Welcome to the Moonee Ponds Creek Fishing Guide. Moonee Ponds Creek is a truly unique urban fishing destination that runs along the 19-kilometre Moonee Ponds Creek Trail. It’s a simple, narrow creek; the trail itself runs along the creek and is heavily used by walkers and cyclists. The trail starts along the Yarra River right next to the Docklands on the fringes of Melbourne CBD and runs all the way around the Tullamarine freeway, passing Pascoe Vale and finishes around Flemington, passing through areas such as Moonee Ponds and Essendon. The trail underwent some necessary upgrades in 2018. For fishing, it offers anglers bream, mullet and trevally. It is known to have poor water quality through this creek, so you would want to be very careful before choosing to eat any caught fish from this creek. You would also like to wash your hands and gear heavily after a fishing session at this destination. Anglers have also noted snake sightings as a regular occurrence.
BECOME A FISHINGMAD MEMBER & UNLOCK ACCESS TO
Weekly Fishing Reports | Workshops | Giveaways | Podcasts | Competitions | Maps | GPS Marks | Rigging Tutorials | Sounder School | Exclusive Footage | Tackle Talks | Gear Guides | Kayak Club | Much More
Things to do at Moonee Ponds
The creek trail is a fantastic cycling destination. 19.3 kilometres of pathed tracks that go up hills, under bridges and along the river. It starts along the Yarra River, right next to the Docklands, on the fringes of Melbourne CBD, and runs all the way around the Tullamarine freeway, passing Pascoe Vale, and finishes around Flemington, passing through areas such as Moonee Ponds and Essendon. It’s also an excellent spot for walking. Moonee Ponds is a vibrant township renowned for great shopping on Puckle Street. Mount Alexander Road features historic buildings, old churches and restaurants. Nearby attractions include Queens Park, clocktower centre. Whilst in the surrounding suburbs, you can visit the Flemington racecourse and the Maribyrnong River.
Fishing Moonee Ponds River Trail
It’s an interesting location for fishing. Towards the entrance, the creek holds good numbers of bream, mullet and trevally. Towards the far end, the creek has a lot of carp & eels. Do take note of the water quality, which isn’t the greatest. We would highly encourage catch and release fishing here instead of taking something home to eat. You can have success fishing with baits using shrimp, yabbies, scrub worms, prawns, sandworms, maggots, mussels, & chicken. Click here to see our full guide for bait fishing for Bream. We recommend reading our guide on the best lures to catch bream. Options include imitation crabs, grub-style soft plastics, minnow-style soft plastics, shallow diving hard body lures, blades and vibes.
The choice of lures is almost endless. To make things easier, we created a detailed video on the best lures and how to use them.
Recommended baits Moonee Ponds Creek
Prawns are often the go-to bait of choice around the Gippsland region. Various other baits like sandworms and maggots will also work very well. There are several ways to present baits including a running sinker rig, paternoster rig, or dropper rig. The rig and sinker choice will be dependent on the species you are targeting and the conditions, such as wind and tidal strength. Ideally, using the smallest sinker you can.
- prawns
- yabbies
- scrub worms
- sandworms
- maggots
- mussels
- pilchards
Recommended lures and soft plastics Moonee Ponds Creek
The number of soft plastics and lures to choose from is almost endless. Lightly weighted soft plastics like 2.5-inch grubs and paddle tails are an outstanding choice, as are shallow-diving hard body lures, surface lures, and crab and yabbie imitations.
- Cranka Crabs
- Mussel Vibes
- OSP bent minnows
- Soft plastics such as Zman grubZ, Zman slim Swimz, Berkley powerbait grub, Daiwa Bait Junkie 2.5-inch grub, Squidge wriggles, Damiki Monster Miki 2.5 sp
- Shallow diving hardbody lures such as Jackall Chubby, Breamin 45, Daiwa Double Clutch, Atomic cranks, Savage Gear Fathead Crank
- Blades such as EcoGear VX range, TT Switchblades, Berkley big eye blades
- Yabby imitations such as Pro lure live Clone prawn, Zman TRD Craw
- Vibes
You can catch dusky flatheads using the soft plastics and lures above but you may also consider bigger soft plastics, glide baits, and swimbaits.
Targeting Bream at Moonee Ponds River
This is a great location to target bream with lures and soft plastics. The options available are almost endless, so make sure you read our guide on the best lures to catch bream. Recommended options include crab imitations, shallow diving cranks, paddle tail soft plastics, curl tail soft plastics, minnow imitations, vibes, and blades. Also, try your luck with surface lures, an exciting form of fishing that uses light gear. Bream is all about finesse fishing so that you will need an ultralight spin outfit. We recommend a 7-foot rod in a 1-3 or 2-4 kilo class, paired with a 1000, 2000 or 2500 reel spooled with 2-6-pound braid and equivalent leader. There are so many amazing bream outfits on the market, and budgets vary greatly depending on your skill level and spending habits. Bream reside within the structure, such as jetty pylons and stumps. Enticing them away from the structure onto your lure will take some time to master. Remember to work your lures and plastics slowly and mix up the retrieval techniques. If you’re targeting bream with bait, then we would highly recommend sandworms, maggots, scrub worms, mussels, yabbies, & chicken. A 2-4 kilo class rod paired with a 2500 size reel would be a great option spooled with 6-pound line. We would encourage you to read our detailed guide on Bait fishing for Bream.
Targeting Estuary Perch at Moonee Ponds River
Another highlight of fishing in this area is targeting Estuary perch with surface and shallow diving lures. The action can be frantic on warm, balmy evenings with low wind. Listen for the sound of breaking water, which indicates EPs are feeding. The excitement an angler gets from an EP smashing a surface lure on light gear is something that genuinely needs to be experienced. It almost catches you by surprise when that aggressive strike comes. Small surface poppers, cicadas, blades, surface minnows and pencil lures work well here. So do shallow diving hardbody lures. Noteworthy options include bent minnows, Rapala countdown series, nories laydown minnows and shallow diving cranks. Basically, anything that doesn’t dive too deep and makes a good vibrating action will work well. You can use any colour choice. We often start with silvers that mimic small baitfish or mullet. EPs also respond incredibly well to a whole range of soft plastics that are lightly weighted. Including curl tails, paddle tails and minnow imitations. The trusty 2.5-inch grubs and minnows are an excellent choice. These imitate small baitfish that the EPs are actively feeding on.
We would recommend mixing up the retrieval speeds and pauses, and experimenting with different colours. Where possible, fish along the structure and stay alert for signs such as breaking water. Fishing for Estuary Perch requires finesse. We recommend an ultralight fishing combo consisting of a 1-3 or 2-4 kilo spin rod around 7 feet in length. For bait fishing, use a 2-4 kilo rod around 7 feet in length, paired with a 2500 size reel. Attach a float or small running sinker to a swivel and fine leader.
Images of fish supplied VFA and DEPI. All other photos and videos shown on the Moonee Ponds Creek Fishing Guide are Fishing Mad originals. Thanks for reading our Moonee Ponds Creek Fishing Guide. If you believe this location guide is missing key information or requires corrections, please email our team at enquiries@fishingmad.com.au with specific details. Please also feel free to share any fishing pictures you have from this location with us. Thank you
