Welcome to the St George’s Lake Fishing Guide. St Georges’s Lake is a man-made lake built back in the late 1800s. Located in the township of Creswick, a 90-minute drive from Melbourne, along the old Melbourne road, this is an excellent spot for the family. There are picnic areas, electric BBQs, a walking track, and lovely views. It’s popular for swimming, cycling, kayaking, photography and fishing. It’s a great place to take the kids or beginners out fishing with an abundance of redfin and stocked trout.
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Things to do at Creswick and St George’s Lake
St George’s Lake is a great family picnic destination. It has free electric BBQs and picnic tables. Enjoy the lake loop walk, which takes roughly 30 minutes to complete and provides stunning views overlooking the lake whilst taking in a good variety of local birdlife, ducks and natural quartz along the trail. There is also the dam spillway lookout to view the old historic pier. This is also a good place to take your dog for a walk or swim. Some noteworthy items include the basic toilet facilities, which need some upgrades. There is a lack of shady spots on warm days, so do bring sunscreen or your own shade. Wasps and bees can also be pests in this area. But it’s still a lovely destination to visit.
The local township of Creswick is home to roughly 3,000 residents. Local attractions include the Avenue of Honour, the Gold Heritage Trail, the museum, a state-of-the-art golf course, and on-course accommodation and facilities at the RACV Goldfields Resort. There is also panning for gold in the Creswick regional park, horse riding trials near Hepburn Lagoon, and nearby wineries around Blampied.
Fishing at St George’s Lake
St George’s Lake is reasonably deep, so do keep an eye on toddlers playing along the banks. Here you can catch several freshwater fish species, including redfin in good numbers, rainbow trout, which have been stocked in recent years by the Victorian Fishing Authority VFA and carp. This lake is regularly stocked with rainbow trout just before school holidays. In April 2020, it received 1,000 rainbow trout yearlings. Use this link to follow Victorian trout stocking programs. If you’re bait fishing here, we would recommend using power bait in bright colours, live minnows, scrub worms, maggots and mudeye under a float, paternoster rig or a small running sinker rig. When fishing with lures and soft plastics, we would strongly suggest starting with small soft plastics, including curl tails and paddle tails, spinners and shallow diving hard body lures. For more suggestions, read our guide on the Best lures and soft plastics to catch redfin
When targeting freshwater species such as trout and redfin, we recommend fishing with a spinning light rod. This will make the experience more enjoyable whilst improving your catch rates. We recommend a fishing rod with a 1-3 or 2-4 kilo capacity. Coupled with a 2000, 2500 or 3000 size reel and spooled with a decent quality braid between 4-8 pounds, finished with a rod length of a quality fluorocarbon leader. Redfin is more active in the warmer months, whilst trout are more active during the cooler months. Most freshwater species tend to feed more aggressively at Dawn and Dusk. My personal favourite is fishing at sundown, particularly in the warmer months.
Recommended baits for St Georges Lake
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 St Georges Lake
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
Targeting Trout at St Georges Lake
We would highly recommend that you read our detailed guide on how to catch trout which details our favourite lures, baits and techniques. You can follow trout stocking timelines by reading the Victorian trout stocking guide as part of the target 1 million by 2020 and 10 million by 2022 initiatives. When targeting trout with lures, we recommend using shallow diving hard body minnows, metal spoons, spinners, Tassie devils and soft plastics, which are also very effective on trout. If you’re bait fishing, then Mudeye, scrub worms, power bait, yabbies, and minnows suspended from a float or a running sinker rig are great options when targeting trout at this location. Trout are more active in cold conditions, with most catches on the first and last light of the day. We recommend targeting trout with a 1-3 or 2-4 kilo fishing rod coupled with a 1000, 2000, or 2500 reel spooled with 4-8-pound braid and equivalent fluorocarbon leader. If there are larger trophy-size trout around, then you can 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.
We conducted a test to see which would perform better for stocked trout powerbait or lures.
Targeting Redfin at St Georges Lake
We recommend targeting redfin with a light spin outfit. This will make the experience more enjoyable and improve your catch rates. A 1-3 or 2-4 kilo fishing rod coupled with a 2000, 2500 or 3000 reel spooled with 4-8-pound braid and equivalent fluorocarbon leader should be perfect. Redfin respond really well to lures and soft plastics so do check our guide on the best lures for catching Redfin When using soft plastics, we highly recommend curl tails, minnow imitations, and paddle tails in both natural and bright colours. Rigged with a jig head that’s 1/8 through to 1/20 in weight. The most effective way to use these is to cast towards visible structure and slow roll the soft plastic with lifts and pauses for the retrieve.
Shallow diving hard body lures, blades and vibes are also very effective in this system. So are traditional spinners and Tassie devils in bright colours. Metal spoons also play a role, allowing you to cast great distances and target the bigger size reddies. Just remember, they are quite heavy and very prone to snags in small inland systems like this one.
Targeting Carp at St Georges Lake
There is a large volume of carp in local lakes; however, they are fun to catch, and you can learn more about catching carp. Have a read of our detailed guide to carp fishing around Victoria. When targeting carp, standard baits such as corn, bread, and maggots work great for carp here. Using a simple running sinker rig with a pea-size sinker works great in this area. So, do suspend baits using a float. We have also fished well using unweighted baits. You can also target carp with hard body lures and soft plastics. This is a complex technique that generally requires sight casting. Which means spotting a nearby carp and casting right in there and working the lure of plastic slowly, hoping they will strike. It’s tough, but very rewarding when you catch a carp using this method. Most, however, will stick to targeting them with bait.
For rod selection, a 3-5 kilo rod coupled with a 4000 size reel is very suitable. You could even fish a little heavier with rods designed for snapper that are generally 4-7 kilo 7 foot in length. For fun I have caught some monster size carp using 2-4 kilo rod and 6-pound braid. 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. Always carry your Victorian fishing license.
A simple yet effective fishing rig involves threading a small running sinker through the mainline, typically around 8 pounds, as shown in blue. Then tie a medium swivel to the end, allowing the sinker to run up the mainline freely. Then tie on the other end of the swivel 50cm of 8-pound fluorocarbon leader (the leader is shown in grey ). Finished with a hook. I generally use a size 6 bait keeper hook or size 10 long shank, 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’re using bread.
If you’re getting snagged up, then 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 keep your bait suspended at a good depth. Ideally cast down breeze which will stop the float from coming back to you. If you’re not getting bites, adjust the line depth and, if necessary, add a splint shot to increase weight.
St Georges Lake Fishing Guide. As with all areas that have water and high grass just always be cautious of snakes in the area. Bees and wasps can congregate in big numbers in this area. The lake is quite deep, so be wary of children and toddlers playing near the water’s edge as it drops off quite quickly.
Images of fish supplied VFA and DEPI. All other images and videos shown on the St Georges Lake Fishing Guide page are Fishing Mad originals. Thank you for visiting the St Georges Lake 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
