Golden perch
Excellent
Prime. Hop soft plastics and vibes around the timber, or fish shrimp and worms on the bottom.
Balonne River at St George Fishing Report
Updated Mon, 9 Nov 2026 from live weather and tide data
The Balonne at St George: Murray cod and golden perch on the Jack Taylor Weir pool, under the Queensland cod closure, with the Bureau’s gauge at the town.
4/5
Good. Solid day ahead.Stable-to-falling pressure and workable wind line things up.
Level
3.37 m
Air / High
21 °C / 28 °C
Wind
S 2 km/h
Sources: Bureau of Meteorology gauge 422201F, Open-Meteo, solunar calculated for these coordinates.
Today's Fishing Report
Balonne River at St George has the water in the comfortable band where most of its fish feed through the day. The gauge reads 3.37 m, up 0.98 over the week. Today brings cloud cover, wind S around 2 km/h, rising pressure near 1015 hPa and a high of 28 °C. Water sits around 19 °C for the season (estimated). With the new moon, the solunar majors run 11:04 PM-1:04 AM and 10:40 AM-12:40 PM: the windows to build the day around.
Murray cod
Slow
Prime. Cast big spinnerbaits, hardbodies and swimbaits tight to timber and rock, and work the same snag several times.
Tie on: Soft plastic on a 1/4 oz jighead · Small hardbody, shallow diver · Squid jig, size 3.0 · Fresh pipi or worm on a small hook. Prime windows: 11:04 PM-1:04 AM, 10:40 AM-12:40 PM, 4:12 AM-5:12 AM. Warmer at 32 °C. The solunar majors shift about 50 minutes later.
Before you go
Queensland has no general fishing licence, but rules and permits apply. Queensland fishing licence: cost, rules and where to buy →
Chasing murray cod here? Check the size and bag limits with Queensland DPI before you keep anything; the Murray cod page has the seasons and the tactics.
Fishing times for Balonne River at St George today
Hour-by-hour bite forecast for today from sunrise (05:08), sunset (18:30), the moon and today's score. Tap a bar to see why.
Bite planner
Solunar majors 11:04 PM-1:04 AM and 10:40 AM-12:40 PM; minor 4:12 AM-5:12 AM. New Moon, 0% lit.
Water and weather
Live readings from Bureau of Meteorology station 422201F (Balonne_R St George).
River level, last 30 days
Bureau of Meteorology Water Data Online, station 422201F. Latest reading 2026-11-08 18:00.
Right now
Latest readings
Air temp21 °C
High / Low28 °C / 11 °C
WindS 2 km/h, gusts 4 km/h
Pressure1015.4 hPa, rising
Sky / Rain85% cloud, 0%
Sunrise / Sunset05:08 / 18:30
MoonNew Moon, 0%
Water temp (seasonal)~19 °C est.
7-day fishing forecast: which day to fish Balonne River at St George
Today is the pick of the week on Balonne River at St George, at 4 out of 5.
Best day this week: today, 9 Nov — good at 4/5, rising pressure behind a front, typically the slowest.
Today, 9 Nov — Good
Stable-to-falling pressure and workable wind line things up.
- Solunar majors
- 11:04 PM-1:04 AM and 10:40 AM-12:40 PM
- Minor period
- 4:12 AM-5:12 AM
- Sun
- 05:08 to 18:30
- Moon
- New Moon, 0% lit
- Sky and wind
- Overcast, 10 km/h
- Rain chance
- 0%
Forecast-based scores, less reliable further out.
Species guide
The species that matter on Balonne River at St George: seasons written for the southern year, and how to fish each one. Today's ratings live in the report above.
Murray cod
Closed 1 September to 30 November in NSW, Victoria and the ACT, and 1 August to 31 October in Queensland; check the exempt lakes
Open now Closes 1 Aug 2027. Closed 1 August to 31 October in Queensland’s Murray-Darling fresh waters, except Connolly, Cooby, Coolmunda, Glenlyon, Leslie and Storm King dams. Rule as read from Queensland Department of Primary Industries on 2026-09-23.
The giant of the inland rivers and the big lakes (Hume, Mulwala, Eildon). A snag fish that eats big lures, and a species with a closed season across the Murray-Darling. Prime. Cast big spinnerbaits, hardbodies and swimbaits tight to timber and rock, and work the same snag several times.
Golden perch
Best: November to April
Yellowbelly. The bread-and-butter native of the Murray-Darling lakes and rivers; loves warm water, structure and a lure worked slowly past its nose. Prime. Hop soft plastics and vibes around the timber, or fish shrimp and worms on the bottom.
When to come: the Balonne River at St George calendar
Activity by species and month for the southern year, and how the water warms and cools. Tap any cell.
Species activity by month
1 = slow, 5 = peak. Current month highlighted. January is midsummer here.
J
F
M
A
M
J
J
A
S
O
N
D
Murray cod
Golden perch
SlowPeak
Water temperature through the year
Typical surface temperature for this water type in degrees Celsius; today is around 19 °C (estimated, not a reading).
Angler reports
Real reports from real anglers, reviewed before publishing. Nothing here is copied from a shop or a charter. The water log below tracks each day automatically.
No angler reports yetBe the first: your report helps every angler who checks Balonne River at St George today.
Water log, last days
Auto-logged from live dataSun, Nov 8
4/5 Good. Solid day ahead. Stable-to-falling pressure and workable wind line things up. Golden perch led the card at excellent. High of 27 °C, wind to 23 km/h.
Sat, Nov 7
4/5 Good. Solid day ahead. Stable-to-falling pressure and workable wind line things up. Golden perch led the card at excellent. High of 32 °C, wind to 21 km/h.
Fri, Nov 6
2/5 Slow. Work for them. Conditions favor short windows and patient fishing. Golden perch led the card at excellent. High of 29 °C, wind to 10 km/h.
Before you go
Licence
Queensland has no general recreational fishing licence; permits apply on some waters and the limits and closures do. Details and where to buy →
Regulations
Size and bag limits, closed seasons and marine park zones are set by Queensland DPI and change: confirm the current rules on the agency page linked from the Queensland licence page before you keep anything.
Access
Queensland has no general fishing licence, and neither the weir pool nor Beardmore Dam is on the state’s stocked impoundment list, so no permit is needed.
About this water
Balonne River at St George is a river in Queensland, Australia, covered from the Queensland reports and listed in all Australia waters.
Fishing Balonne River at St George: the full guide
The reach
At St George the Balonne is held into a long pool by the Jack Taylor Weir beside the town, running between river gums and floodplain in Queensland’s south-west, with Beardmore Dam and its lake, Lake Kajarabie, upstream. Downstream the river divides across its floodplain toward the Culgoa and the Darling system. Bureau of Meteorology station 422201F, Balonne_R St George, supplies the level and the 30-day chart on this page.
Species and seasons
Murray cod, 60 cm minimum and two per person, are the headline fish, holding on snags and in the deepest water and feeding best from late spring into autumn. The Queensland Murray-Darling cod closure, 1 August to 31 October, applies to the river and the weir pool. Golden perch, with a 30 cm minimum and a limit of ten, are the everyday catch in the warmer months.
Where to fish it
Riverside parks in town give bank access to the pool, and a boat lets you work the timbered edges upstream. Do not fish near the structures: Queensland bans all fishing from 100 metres upstream to 200 metres downstream of Jack Taylor Weir, and the same distances apply at the Beardmore Dam wall. In the heat of a south-west summer, dawn, dusk and the first hours of darkness are the productive and bearable sessions.
Reading the report
The weir keeps the town pool fairly level, so the chart usually moves in small steps; a sharp rise means floodwater coming down, and in a big flood the Balonne spreads well beyond its banks. Golden perch often respond strongly to fresh inflows. The water temperature estimate, labelled as one, runs high through summer, and storms bring the pressure changes that show on the score.
Rules and access
Queensland has no general fishing licence, and neither the weir pool nor Beardmore Dam is on the state’s stocked impoundment list, so no permit is needed. The cod closure, the limits and the closed zones at the weir and the dam wall are on the Queensland Government pages linked below.
Lake Kajarabie and the Beardmore Dam
Upstream, Beardmore Dam holds Lake Kajarabie, the district’s irrigation storage, and it fishes for the same cod and golden perch as the river. Between the lake and the weir pool a visitor has two quite different waters within a short drive, and downstream of St George the Balonne runs on into the channels that feed the Culgoa and the Darling.
Common questions
When is cod closed on the Balonne?
From 1 August to 31 October under Queensland’s Murray-Darling rule; neither the river nor the weir pool is exempt.
Where is fishing banned at St George?
From 100 metres upstream to 200 metres downstream of Jack Taylor Weir, and over the same distances at the Beardmore Dam wall.
Is fishing good at Balonne River at St George right now?
Check the daily report at the top of this page: it is regenerated every morning from live data. Today's read: Good. Solid day ahead. Stable-to-falling pressure and workable wind line things up.
Nearby waters
Where this page's numbers come from
- Storage and river readings
- Bureau of Meteorology, Water Data Online, station 422201F — Balonne_R St George
- Open-Meteo forecast model
- https://open-meteo.com/
- Moon and solunar windows
- Calculated on this site
- Pages checked
- The written guide on this page
Pablo Ruiz Quintero
Readings refresh on a 30-minute window. The full method, with every figure and its source, is on How our reports are made. Something wrong here? Tell us and it goes in the log with the date.