Tullaroop Reservoir

Welcome to the Tullaroop Reservoir Fishing Guide. Tullaroop Reservoir is roughly 2 hours drive from Melbourne just beyond the wider Ballarat area. The reservoir was built back in the 1950s and today Tullaroop offers great trout fishing in the winter months. Those brave enough to endure the frosty mornings are rewarded with a trophy-sized brown or rainbow trout. Walking the banks and looking for any signs of life breaking the surface is a great start. Fly fishermen will do well here casting flies into that immediate area and waiting for a strike. It’s also a great location for redfin in summer. In future years Tullaroop thanks to recent stocking programs will be great for golden perch too.

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On the 21^st of May 2019, Tullaroop Reservoir was officially opened to kayaks, canoes and electric boats. This freshwater system has been heavily stocked with trout and golden perch in recent years creating an amazing ecosystem and fishing destination in years to come. Water storage levels at times can be quite low in mid-2019 water storage was recorded at 40% capacity.

Things to do at Tullaroop Reservoir

This area has ample car parking, toilet facilities, and picnic grounds with tables and chairs. Woodfire BBQ facilities make it a nice spot to take the family for a day out fishing.

Fishing Tullaroop Reservoir

At Tullaroop Reservoir you can catch

Brown Trout
Rainbow Trout
Redfin (English perch)
Yellowbelly (Golden perch)

Here you can catch redfin, trout, and golden perch. Over the last four years, almost 200,000 brown and rainbow trout have been stocked into the reservoir. In March 2019 Tullaroop was also stocked with 100,000 golden perch. Mudeye under a bubble float is great at Tullaroop ideally with the wind and gentle tidal flow behind you to prevent your bait from coming back to the shallow bank. Other general baits work well to scrub worms, earthworms, Power bait and yabbies with a light-running sinker rig. Hardbody minnow-style lures work great for trout in this area. Natural-looking colours that imitate a minnow or trout fingerling have been our preference. We have had success with the Daiwa double clutch in 60mm and 75mm versions, the Rapala countdown series, Savage Gear 3D prey minnow 65mm and bullet 5-0 minnows. Long casting lures such as Tassie Devils in 13 grams and metal spoons around 10 grams such as Wasaby and Paco spoons also work well. They allow you to cover great distances which are especially important on windy days.

General soft plastics particularly 5 and 6 cm curl tail and paddle tail minnows work great in deeper sections. Natural colours such as motor oil are good options. Simply adjust the weight of the jig head to your desired depth. We would generally start around 1/8 grams and move up or down depending on the conditions that day. Also, spinners are a good option for targeting both trout and redfin. Click out our guide to the best lures and soft plastics when targeting Redfin. It’s always a good idea when target Trout and Redfin fish as lightly as possible. This will make the experience more fun and improve your chances. However, Tullaroop can hold fish up to 10 kilos so you may choose to use a heavier line up to 10 pounds is perfectly fine. We would recommend using a 7-foot spin rod, with a capacity of 1-4 or 2-5 kilos. A 2500-size spinning reel and the main line spooled with 6-10 pound braid finished with a good quality leader. Fly fishing is also a great technique in this location. Any time of day, though some fish will be more active at Dawn and Dusk. Again if you’re brave in the morning in the cold winter months that’s often when the brown trout will be most active.

Here are some great fishing locations in the surrounding area.

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Recommended baits Tullaroop Reservoir

The video below demonstrates the best baits for trout and how to rig them correctly.

Scrub worms
Powerbait
Yabbies
Mudeye
maggots
Corn

Recommended lures Tullaroop Reservoir

Stump jumpers
Spinnerbaits
Bluefox spinners
Daiwa DR joint minnows
Jackall TN50/60s
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
Zerek fish trap
eco gear ZX40
Savage Gear Fathead crank shallow diving
Squidges biotough grub

Targeting Trout at Tullaroop Reservoir

Trout

We recommend you read our 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 power bait or lures. Watch the video below to find out the results which were interesting.

Targeting Redfin at Tullaroop Reservoir

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 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.

Targeting Yellowbelly at Tullaroop Reservoir

Golden Perch

Yellow belly is a beautiful freshwater fish found in this system and with a rich food source available the yellowbelly here grow to good sizes. Curltail and paddle tail soft plastics in black colours are standout choices so are soft vibes, blades, lipless crank-baits such as Jackall TN50 and TN60s. Other favourites are the reliable stump jumpers and spinnerbaits. Soft plastics work best on a 1/8 or 1/4 jig head slow-rolled or jigged along any structure. Even tie your boat or kayak up to trees and work the soft plastic adding noise 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 down scan and side scan technologies on your sounder and spend some time moving between the structure to find the fish. Other lures can be worked amongst the timber but in general work well in open water being slow-rolled or trolled.

A light spin rod around 7 feet in length in 2-4 or 3-5 kilo paired with a 2000 or 2500 size reel. Spooled with 8-12 pound braid and an equivalent fluorocarbon leader. Light to Medium baitcaster combos is also a very popular choice when targeting Yellowbelly with spinnerbaits and larger lures. Good bait rigs include a paternoster rig with a small sinker at the bottom or a running sinker rig with scrub worms or yabbies.

Images of fish supplied VFA and DEPI. All other images and videos shown on the Tullaroop Reservoir Fishing Guide are Fishing Mad originals.

Thank you for visiting the Tullaroop Reservoir 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

Tullaroop Reservoir