Golden perch
Excellent
Prime. Hop soft plastics and vibes around the timber, or fish shrimp and worms on the bottom.
Leslie Dam Fishing Report
Updated Mon, 9 Nov 2026 from live weather and tide data
Sandy Creek’s storage 11 km from Warwick: stocked Murray cod, golden perch and silver perch, a Stocked Impoundment Permit and a Bureau of Meteorology gauge.
2/5
Slow. Work for them.Conditions favor short windows and patient fishing.
Level
470.38 m82,178 ML
Air / High
16 °C / 24 °C
Wind
SSE 7 km/h
Sources: Bureau of Meteorology gauge 422315B, Open-Meteo, solunar calculated for these coordinates.
Today's Fishing Report
Leslie Dam is fishing in its best temperature window, with the bite spread across the day. The gauge reads 470.38 m, up 0.18 over the week. Today brings clear skies, wind SSE around 6 km/h, rising pressure near 1017 hPa and a high of 24 °C. Water sits around 19 °C for the season (estimated). With the new moon, the solunar majors run 10:26 AM-12:26 PM and 10:47 PM-12:47 AM: 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: 10:26 AM-12:26 PM, 10:47 PM-12:47 AM, 3:58 AM-4:58 AM. Similar at 26 °C with a rain chance. 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 Leslie Dam today
Hour-by-hour bite forecast for today from sunrise (04:55), sunset (18:17), the moon and today's score. Tap a bar to see why.
Bite planner
Solunar majors 10:26 AM-12:26 PM and 10:47 PM-12:47 AM; minor 3:58 AM-4:58 AM. New Moon, 0% lit.
Leslie Dam Level today, and the weather
Live readings from Bureau of Meteorology station 422315B (Leslie Dam).
Storage level, last 30 days
Bureau of Meteorology Water Data Online, station 422315B. Latest reading 2026-11-08 11:00.
Right now
Latest readings
Air temp16 °C
High / Low24 °C / 10 °C
WindSSE 7 km/h, gusts 11 km/h
Pressure1017.1 hPa, rising
Sky / Rain11% cloud, 0%
Sunrise / Sunset04:55 / 18:17
MoonNew Moon, 0%
Water temp (seasonal)~19 °C est.
7-day fishing forecast: which day to fish Leslie Dam
The best day on Leslie Dam this week looks like Friday 13 Nov, at 5 out of 5, against 2 today.
Best day this week: Friday, 13 Nov — excellent at 5/5, falling pressure, usually the best window of a week.
Today, 9 Nov — Tough
Conditions favor short windows and patient fishing.
- Solunar majors
- 10:26 AM-12:26 PM and 10:47 PM-12:47 AM
- Minor period
- 3:58 AM-4:58 AM
- Sun
- 04:55 to 18:17
- Moon
- New Moon, 0% lit
- Sky and wind
- Partly cloudy, 21 km/h
- Rain chance
- 0%
Forecast-based scores, less reliable further out.
Species guide
The species that matter on Leslie Dam: 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 all year Leslie Dam is exempt from the closed season 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 Leslie Dam 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 Leslie Dam today.
Water log, last days
Auto-logged from live dataSun, Nov 8
3/5 Fair. Fish the windows. A steady pattern: dawn and dusk carry the day. Golden perch led the card at excellent. High of 26 °C, wind to 26 km/h.
Sat, Nov 7
5/5 Excellent. Go now. Everything lines up: pressure, wind and light are in your favor. Golden perch led the card at excellent. High of 28 °C, wind to 14 km/h.
Fri, Nov 6
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 26 °C, wind to 18 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
Leslie Dam is in the Stocked Impoundment Permit Scheme, and Sunwater’s page states that a permit is required to fish it.
Permit
Leslie Dam is in Queensland’s Stocked Impoundment Permit scheme: anyone 18 or over fishing it with a line needs the permit, and one permit covers every scheme water. What the permit costs and where to buy it. Compare it with every other storage in the state on Queensland dam levels today.
About this water
Leslie Dam is a lake in Queensland, Australia, covered from the Queensland reports and listed in all Australia waters.
Fishing Leslie Dam: the full guide
The lake
Leslie Dam holds Sandy Creek on the southern Darling Downs, 11 km from Warwick by Sunwater’s count, a Murray-Darling storage on the inland side of the range. Sunwater gives its capacity as 106,300 ML since the 1986 works that added radial gates and more than doubled the storage. The recreation areas have boat ramps, parking, picnic ground, toilets, barbecues and a playground, with privately run camping in a designated area and new facilities in the upper recreation zone finished in 2024. The Bureau of Meteorology’s gauge at the dam supplies the storage level and the 30-day chart on this page.
Species and seasons
The Queensland Government’s stocked impoundment list gives Leslie Dam three species: golden perch, Murray cod and silver perch, all kept up by stocking. Leslie is one of the six dams the state names as exempt from the Murray-Darling cod closure, which runs from 1 August to 31 October in the basin’s other fresh waters, so the species card reads open all year here. Golden perch are the fish most anglers meet, on the points and standing timber from spring into autumn; cod hold tighter to structure and feed hardest in the warm months, often around dusk.
Where to fish it
Sunwater prohibits fishing from the shore on or near the dam wall, and boats must stay at least 100 metres from the wall behind the buoy line, so the wall end is not a fishing spot. The water to work is the rest of the lake: timbered arms, points and the drop-offs into the old creek bed, which a sounder shows once the level falls and the fish crowd into less water. Swimming, kayaking and sailing are allowed outside the restricted zones, and powered craft are limited to 40 knots.
Reading the report
Summer on the Downs is hot and a winter night can freeze, so the water temperature estimate, labelled as an estimate, puts the cod and perch band roughly from October to April. The level chart is worth reading as closely as the score: a falling storage concentrates fish on the remaining structure, while a quick rise after rain spreads them into newly flooded grass. On open water the wind row decides whether a small boat goes out, and a falling barometer ahead of a summer storm often brings a short, busy bite.
Permits, access and rules
Leslie Dam is in the Stocked Impoundment Permit Scheme, and Sunwater’s page states that a permit is required to fish it. Anyone 18 or older needs one, at A$13.60 a week or A$64.58 a year as read from the Queensland Government; our Queensland licence page carries the concession price. The permit money pays for the stocking that keeps the fishery going. Queensland size and possession limits for the three species apply on top, and the permit list and the cod exemption are linked in the sources.
Common questions
Is cod open all year at Leslie Dam?
Yes. The Queensland Government lists Leslie Dam among the dams where the 1 August to 31 October Murray-Darling cod closure does not apply; the rule is linked in the sources.
Do I need a permit at Leslie Dam?
Yes, from age 18: the Stocked Impoundment Permit, A$13.60 a week or A$64.58 a year. Fishing from the shore on or near the dam wall is not allowed.
Is fishing good at Leslie Dam right now?
Check the daily report at the top of this page: it is regenerated every morning from live data. Today's read: Slow. Work for them. Conditions favor short windows and patient fishing.
Nearby waters
Where this page's numbers come from
- Storage and river readings
- Bureau of Meteorology, Water Data Online, station 422315B — Leslie Dam
- 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.