Welcome to the Navan Park Fishing Guide. Melton is roughly 35 kilometres or 30 minutes from Melbourne. This once small country township was initially known as a thoroughbred country, but recent rapid population booms have modernised the township, with a harness racing track, wave pool, parks, and a shopping centre. It does surprisingly have a lot of freshwater locations for anglers to try. This includes Navan Park Reservoir, Melton Reservoir, West Lakes and Darlingsford Lake. Many of the lakes are overpopulated with Carp. During school holidays, several of the lakes are stocked regularly with trout, making them great spots to take the kids for a fish. Melton is also part of future native fish stocking programs, making it an excellent fishery in years to come.
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Check out our detailed video of kayak fishing at Melton Reservoir
Things to do at Navan Park, Melton
Navan Park has excellent onsite facilities, including a kids’ playground, a lake stocked with fish, a 1,500-step walking track around the lake, BBQs, drinking fountains, an Off-lead dog area, Picnic Tables, Bike paths, and an underground shelter. Most spots in Melton are very kid-friendly with a range of swings, walking tracks and running areas. Navan Park is a terrific spot to take kids who can play on the large adventure playground and feed the ducks. The lakes are generally stocked with rainbow trout each school holiday break, making it an excellent spot for kids. Local attractions include Tabcorp Park harness racing centre, Woodgrove shopping centre, Melton Valley Golf club, Melton Botanic Gardens, Hannah Watts Park, The Cinemas, The Willows, and Woodlea playground. You can also go for a short drive to the neighbouring townships of Eynesbury and Bacchus Marsh.
Navan Park Kids Adventure Playground
Fishing at Navan Park
Navan Park is a family-friendly fishing location. There are excellent parking facilities on Centenary Avenue. Navan Park has a large kids’ adventure playground and is stocked with trout every school holiday. At Melton Reservoir, you can target trout and carp. In recent years, it has also been heavily stocked with native fish species, including Murray Cod, Silver Perch and Golden Perch. The stocking of native species will increase in this area over time. The system is very shallow and choc full of carp, especially around the bridge.
Melton has several freshwater fishing options, including Melton Reservoir, West Lakes and Darlingford Lake. These are choc-full of carp but also hold a good population of redfin and are stocked regularly with trout Victorian trout stocking guide. If you are fishing with bait, then scrub worms, powerbait, yabbies, and mudeye are great options, either suspended from a float or running sinker rig. Flicking lures can be challenging as the shallow areas are full of weeds and grass, so you need to cast beyond those areas to have any success. Soft plastics and spinners are also fantastic options. We encourage you to read our detailed guide on the best lures & plastics when targeting Redfin. Shallow diving hard body lures such as bullet lures, Daiwa double-clutch, Rapala Countdown series and Savage gear minnows are also excellent choices.
Below you can see the fish that have been stocked here in 2022. However, Navan Park has received a total of 7,630 fish in recent years, including being part of the stonker trout stocking in 2021.
Recommended baits for Navan Park
The video below demonstrates the best baits for trout and how to rig them correctly.
- Scrub worms
- Mudeye
- Powerbait
- maggots
- Earthworms
- yabbies
- live minnows
Recommended lures for Navan Park
Need some help choosing lures and soft plastics. The video below is a detailed guide to get you started.
- Daiwa Double Clutch
- Pontoon 21 paco spoon
- Tassie Devils 13.5 grams in pinks and whites
- Bluefox spinners
- Rapala countdown floating minnow
- EcoGear MX48
- YoZuri pins minnow
- Daiwa presso minnows
- Nories laydown minnow
- Bluefox spinners
- OSP bent minnow
- Daiwa DR joint minnows
- Strike tiger nymph
- Berkley powerbait grub
- Bullet lures 5-0 minnow
- Zman 2.5-inch grub
- Bullet lures 3cm lure
Watch this video of FishingMad fishing for huge trout.
Targeting Trout at Navan Park
We highly recommend you read our detailed guide on how to catch trout, which details our favourite lures, baits and techniques. You can follow when trout will be stocked using the Victorian trout stocking programs as part of the target 1 million by 2020 and 10 million by 2022 initiatives. We recommend shallow diving hard body minnows, metal spoons, spinners, and Tassie devils when using lures. Soft plastics are also very effective on trout. If you’re bait fishing, then Mudeye, scrub worms, powerbait, yabbies, and minnows suspended on a float or a running sinker rig. Fly fishing is a popular fishing method at this location. Trout are more active in cold conditions, with most catches on the first and last light of the day. We recommend a 2-4 kilo fishing rod, coupled with a 2000 or 2500 reel, spooled with 4-8-pound braid and an equivalent fluorocarbon leader. If trophy-size trout are around, you could go heavier, moving up the scale to a 3-5 kilo class spin rod spooled with fine 8-12-pound braid and equivalent fluorocarbon leader.
Targeting Yellowbelly at Navan Park
Yellow belly, AKA Golden Perch, is a beautiful freshwater fish in this system. With a rich food source, they can grow to thick and plump sizes. Good lure choices include curl tail soft plastics; the Gulp 3-inch grub minnow in black is a standout choice. Soft vibes like the Zerek fish trap, and Samaki vibelicious are great options. Lip-less crank-baits, such as Jackall TN50 and TN60, remain very popular, as do blades like the eco gear ZX40 with stinger hooks. Other favourites are the reliable stump jumpers and spinnerbaits. Soft plastics work best on a 1/8 or 1/4 jig head vertically jigged along structure. This technique works particularly well when using spotlock or tying your boat or kayak up against trees. Slowly work the soft plastic against the tree and add some noise to the action by tapping the butt of your rod or by hitting the jig head into the timber. This brings out the predatory nature of the yellowbelly. Take advantage of Livescope, down scan and side scan technologies on your sounder and spend some time moving between the structure to find the fish. Other lures will also work well in open water, being slow-rolled or trolled. Typically, we use a light to medium spin rod around 7 feet in length, 2-4 or 3-5 kilo class, paired with a 2000 or 2500 size reel and spooled with 8-12-pound braid and an equivalent fluorocarbon leader. Baitcaster rods and reels are a very popular choice when targeting yellowbelly. Good options include a 3-5 or 4-6 baitcaster with a 2000 baitcaster reel. When bait fishing, a 7-foot light rod paired with a 3000-size reel is used. Good bait rigs include a paternoster rig with a small sinker at the bottom or a running sinker rig with scrub worms or yabbies.
Targeting Murray Cod at Navan Park
Murray Cod is Australia’s largest freshwater fish, which grows to impressive sizes. Murray Cod are ambush predators that love the cover of structure, so make sure you concentrate your efforts on any visible structure, including logs and submerged trees. They will also seek shelter in deeper holes and rock ledges. Murray Cod are most active in low light conditions, such as sunrise and sundown. A medium to heavy bait-caster rod is ideal when targeting cod. At this system, which has giant cod, we recommend a heavy baitcast combo around 6″6 in length and 8-15kg in class paired with a 150/200 baitcast reel spooled with 50lb braid. You can also fish lighter, which might be a stiff 6-foot rod in the 6-10 kilo class matched with a suitable size bait-caster reel spooled with a 20lb to 30lb braid and 30lb to 40lb leader. Good lure options for Murray Cod include hard body lures, surface lures, spinnerbaits, swimbaits, shads, lipless crankbaits, paddle tail and curtail soft plastics. If access is permitted, these should be worked slowly or trolled from your boat or kayak. Some terrific surface lures are on the market these days, including imitation mice, frogs, ducks, and snakes with realistic action that are fun to target cod with. Bait anglers can target Murray cod with live yabbies and worms.
Watch a detailed video of Al from FishingMad walking you through how to catch big Murray Cod.
Targeting Silver Perch at Navan Park
Silver Perch have been heavily stocked in recent years and are a great species for bait anglers. They have a legal size limit of 30cm and a bag limit of 5 per person (0 limit for Rivers and streams north of the Great Dividing Range, excluding the Wimmera Basin). We recommend a 2-4 kilo fishing rod, coupled with a 2000 or 2500 reel, spooled with 4-8-pound braid and an equivalent fluorocarbon leader. Using a simple running sinker rig or float rig with a small size six baitkeeper hook with scrubworms, shrimp or yabbies as the best bait. They will also take small soft plastics, but most commonly are targeted with bait.
Targeting Carp at Navan Park
We highly recommend you read our detailed guide on how to catch carp fishing around Victoria. Carp will actively take simple baits like worms, corn, bread, and maggots on a running sinker rig with a small sinker. Suspending baits from a float also works well, as do unweighted baits. You can target carp with hard-body lures and soft plastics; however, this is a complex technique that generally requires sight-casting to a nearby carp, casting towards them, and working the lure or plastic slowly, hoping they will strike. It’s challenging but rewarding when you catch a carp using this method. Most anglers, however, will stick to targeting them with bait.
A 2-5 kilo rod coupled with a 3000 size reel is very suitable. You could even fish a little heavier if the system is known to hold huge ones up to a meter. I have caught some monster-size carp using a 2-4 kilo rod and 6-pound braid for fun. But I am prepared to lose some good fish in the process. We like to target carp at sundown, particularly in the warmer months. This is often when you see carp swimming along the edges or jumping out of the water around September-November, which is their spawning season. European carp must not be returned to the water. A simple yet effective fishing rig involves threading a small running sinker, typically around 8 pounds, through the mainline, as shown in blue. Then tie a medium swivel to the end, allowing the sinker to run freely up the mainline. Then, tie on 50cm of 8-pound fluorocarbon leader at the other end of the swivel (the leader is shown in grey). Finished with a hook. I generally use a size 6 baitkeeper hook or a size 10 long-shank hook, which is perfect for corn kernels or scrub worms; however, you can also use small treble-style hooks, which is a better setup if you use bread.
If you’re getting snagged, you can also use a float rig. Attach a quill or bubble float to your mainline. Thread the line through and adjust the length using a size 6 bait keeper hook or size 10 long shank to keep your bait suspended at a good depth. Ideally, cast down the breeze, stopping the float from returning to you. If you’re not getting bites, adjust the line depth and, if necessary, add a splint shot to add weight.
Always carry your Victorian fishing license. FishingMad encourages ‘catch & release of all native species to help maintain the water quality within the lake; however, European Carp must not be returned. Melton has always been a great hunting ground for snakes, so in the warmer months, always be wary of Tiger Snakes, Brown Snakes, and Red-bellied Black Snakes. Wearing protective footwear in the middle of summer is a good idea. Swimming, camping, boating and open fires are prohibited. Always carry your Victorian fishing license. FishingMad encourages ‘catch & release’ of all native species to help maintain the water quality within the lake; however, European Carp must not be returned.
Images of fish supplied VFA and DEPI. All other photos and videos shown on the Melton Fishing Guide are Fishing Mad originals. Thank you for visiting the Navan Park 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
