Welcome to the Hanging Rock Fishing Guide. Hanging Rock in Woodend is a beautiful location amongst the Macedon ranges more known for its picturesque walking tracks and stunning rare volcanic rock formations along the top of the mountain walks. A sacred indigenous setting is now a location for amazing photos, and picnics with the resident kangaroos, koalas, wallabies, many species of birds, lizards and wildlife. It’s a spot that the family will love, but many don’t realise that there is a small fishing pool located near the race track.
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Things to do at hanging Rock
It’s a lovely area, with stunning views, photo opportunities, walking trails, and open picnic grounds amongst the kangaroos and birds. You can enjoy the surrounding views and challenge yourself to climb to the top. You can see a Map of the Hanging rock walking trial here. The rock is a truly unique formation a former volcano that now lies 718m above sea level between the townships of Newham and Hesket, 70 km from Melbourne and 20 minutes from Mount Macedon. Hanging rock also features regular horse racing, markets and occasional music concerts. There is ample parking with a $10 entry fee which must be paid at the cafe. As with all country, rural areas always be mindful of snakes.
Watch our detailed video guide on our top 10 redfin lures below
Fishing at Hanging Rock
Hanging Rock Lake is a nice place to target stocked Trout. Use this link to follow Victorian trout stocking programs. Powerbait trout nuggets suspended from a float area are a great option for fishing here. I keep the power bait about 40cm underneath the float. Power bait is similar to what stocked trout are used to eating in the farming hatcheries so they will eagerly take power bait. Use some trout pellets as berely to bring them into the area, many locals have noted this as key to catching more fish in this spot.
Powerbait or lures for stocked trout, find out the results which were interesting.
Other bait options include scrub worms, maggots, corn, and mudeye. Either from a float or with a light running sinker rig. Thread a small running sinker through the mainline shown in blue, which is usually around 8 pounds. 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.
This lake also has redfin in a small lake. This is a great location for small lures and soft plastics. Have a look at our detailed guide on the best lures and plastics when targeting Redfin. Small spinners and small minnow imitation soft plastics lightly weighed are a great option here for trout. So are smaller size tassie devils. Smaller Shallow diving hard body lures such as bullet lures, Daiwa double-clutch, Rapala Countdown series and Savage gear minnows are also excellent choices.
Check out this video highlighting how to target stocked rainbow trout. This video will walk you through some helpful tips to get you started.
When targeting Trout fish as light as possible which will make the experience more fun and improve your chances. Redfin will actively take many baits or lures. To maximize your chances fish with a 1-3 or 2-4 kilo rod. The main line spooled with 4-pound braid finished with a good quality leader.
Stocking of the lake happens just prior to each school holiday, so that’s the best time to go. But make sure you put all the small trout caught back into the system to grow. Most freshwater species have a tendency to feed more aggressively at Dawn and Dusk. My personal favourite is fishing the sundown, particularly in the warmer months.
Recommended baits Hanging Rock
- Powerbait
- Scrub worms
- Mudeye
- maggots
Recommended lures Hanging Rock
- 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 Hanging Rock
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 a 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.
Targeting Redfin at Hanging Rock
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 targeting the bigger size reddies. Just remember they are quite heavy and very prone to snags in small inland systems like this one.
All other images and videos shown on the Hanging Rock Fishing Guide are Fishing Mad originals.
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