Welcome to the Rubicon River Fishing Guide. Rubicon River is located 2 hours drive northeast of Melbourne along the Maroondah highway south of township Thornton is highly regarded as one of the best trout fishing destinations that Victoria can offer. A shallow river system over 26 kilometres in length flows into the Goulburn River. With beautiful picturesque scenery, crystal clear flowing water and trout that grow to amazing sizes. It’s a must-visit spot especially if you are a keen fly fisherman. With shallow running water, and odd deep pools a keen eye will be able to sight cast for big trout in clear waters.
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Things to do at Rubicon Reservoir
This is a beautiful fishing destination with crystal clear flowing waters, surrounding forests, mountain views, large rocks along the river bank and dense vegetation of green ferns. Rain and water flow will determine the best times to fish these areas. There are national parks and nice sections to go camping with the family. It does get cold so do remember to bring clothing to stay warm. There are some amazing forest walking trials including Kendall’s trial and Cicada’s trial. There are nearby attractions in Snobs creek falls, Morris lookout and Mt Tebrek.
Fishing Rubicon River
The Rubicon is a magnificent location to target trout. Rainbow trout, brown trout and brook trout. In recent years brook trout have been caught in good numbers which are very pleasing. Use this link to follow Victorian trout stocking programs. In May 2020 a $22,000 Rubicon River Fish Habitat Enhancement project was undertaken installing over 100 boulders into four areas along the river. The boulders increase the aquatic habitat for trout, in fast-flowing waters. The project was supported by the ATF, VRFish, NFA and local councils. Please remember that there is an open and close season for fishing along the Rubicon River. The 2020 trout and salmon closed season on rivers and streams is from 12:01 am on Tuesday 9 June until 11:59 pm on Friday 4 September. Limits apply including 3 salmonids per day, of which no more than 2 fish can exceed 35cm.
The Rubicon River is a great place to walk along the banks with waders in search of clearing and free-flowing water to target. This spot is notorious for fly fishing. Speak to your local tackle store about getting rigged up with a fly fishing kit. 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 finished with a rod length of a quality fluorocarbon leader. Due to shallow running water and small pockets and pools with trout that can be sight cast. If lure fishing then sticks to shallow diving hard body lures lightly weighted soft plastics and bug imitations such as mayfly and crickets. Small spinners that don’t sink too quickly will work as well.
If you 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 Trout will bite all day long in this area but are notorious for feeding more heavily at Dawn and Dusk. My personal favourite is fishing the sundown.
Check out this video highlighting how to target stocked rainbow trout.
Redfin is more active in the warmer months whilst trout are more active during the cooler months. Most freshwater species have a tendency to feed more aggressively at Dawn and Dusk. My personal favourite is fishing the sundown particularity in the warmer months.
Recommended baits Rubicon Reservoir
- Scrub worms
- Powerbait
- Yabbies
- Mudeye
- maggots
Recommended lures Rubicon 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
- Nories Wasabi spoon
- Rapala countdown floating minnow
- Pontoon 21 paco spoon
- 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 Rubicon 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 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 power bait or lures. Watch the video below to find out the results which were interesting.
Images of fish supplied VFA and DEPI. All other images and videos shown on the Rubicon River Fishing Guide page are Fishing Mad originals.
Thank you for visiting the Rubicon River Fishing Guide. If you feel this location guide is missing 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. Please also feel free to share any fishing pictures you have from this location with us. Thank you