Cosgrave Reservoir

Welcome to the Cosgrave Reservoir Fishing Guide. Located 10 minutes’ drive from Ballarat near the township of Creswick is small water storage known as Cosgrove Reservoir. Please note you can only access this reservoir with written permission from the local shire.

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Things to do at Cosgrave Reservoir

This is a scenic and hilly area that presents a nice walk. It doesn’t have playgrounds but can be a nice place for kids. It has an abundance of small redfin which makes it a great location to fish with the kids. As with all areas that have water and high grass just always be cautious of snakes in the area.

Fishing Cosgrave Reservoir

Cosgrave Reservoir Is periodically stocked with rainbow and brown trout. This reservoir is occasionally stocked with rainbow trout just prior to the school holidays. Use this link to follow Victorian trout stocking programs.

If you are fishing with bait then 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 

Check out this video highlighting how to target stocked rainbow trout.

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 suggest a 1-3 or 2-4 kilo-capacity fishing rod. Coupled with a 2000, 2500, or 3000 size reel. Spooled with a decent quality braid between 4-8 pound and finished with a rod length of a quality fluorocarbon leader.

Recommended baits Cosgrave Reservoir

• Bluefox spinners
• Daiwa DR joint minnows
• Daiwa Bait Junkie 2.5 inch grub
• Savage Gear minnow blade
• Berkley powerbait grub
• Daiwa Presso minnows
• Tasmanian Devil Blade
• Bullet lures 5-0 minnow
• Bullet lures 3cm lure
• strike tiger nymph
• Rapala countdown floating minnow
• Daiwa Double Clutch
• Tasmanian Devil lure
• Gulp 3-inch minnow
• Zman 2.5 inch grub
• Daiwa Bait Junkie paddle tail minnow
• Savage Gear Fathead crank shallow diving
• Squidges biotough grub

Targeting Trout at Cosgrave Reservoir

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 your 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 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 a fine 8-12-pound braid and equivalent fluorocarbon leader.

We conducted a test to see which would perform better for stocked trout power bait or lures. Watch the video below to find out the results which were interesting.

All images and videos shown on the Cosgrove Reservoir Fishing Guide are Fishing Mad originals.

Thank you for visiting the Cosgrove Reservoir Fishing Guide. If you feel this location guide is missing any key information or needs any corrections made, then please let us know by emailing our team at enquiries@fishingmad.com.au with specific details in the email. Thank you