Rainbow trout
Excellent
Prime. Shore fishing along the edges with bait, spinners and flies, and the rivers if the season is open.
Great Lake Fishing Report
Updated Mon, 9 Nov 2026 from live weather and tide data
Yingina / Great Lake on the Central Plateau: wild brown trout and rainbows in cold, windy water, open all year except Canal Bay, with a level read from the Bureau every day.
3/5
Fair. Fish the windows.A steady pattern: dawn and dusk carry the day.
Level
1026.61 m1,110,701 ML
Air / High
6 °C / 12 °C
Wind
N 12 km/h
Sources: Bureau of Meteorology gauge 139.2, Open-Meteo, solunar calculated for these coordinates.
Today's Fishing Report
Great Lake has cool water and fish holding a little deeper and slower. The gauge reads 1026.61 m, easing 0.08 over the week. Today brings clear skies, wind N around 11 km/h, steady pressure near 1020 hPa and a high of 12 °C. Water sits around 13 °C for the season (estimated). With the new moon, the solunar majors run 11:19 PM-1:19 AM and 11:48 AM-1:48 PM: the windows to build the day around.
Brown trout
Excellent
Prime. Nymphs and streamers on the rivers, and the lake edges on the overcast days.
Tie on: Blade or vibe, slow hops · Lightly weighted plastic · Whole pilchard or squid on the bottom · Suspending hardbody. Prime windows: 11:19 PM-1:19 AM, 11:48 AM-1:48 PM, 4:48 AM-5:48 AM. Similar at 14 °C with a rain chance. The solunar majors shift about 50 minutes later.
Before you go
Tasmania requires a fishing licence for most fishing, from A$29.00. Tasmania fishing licence: cost, rules and where to buy →
Chasing rainbow trout here? Check the size and bag limits with IFS Tasmania before you keep anything; the Rainbow trout page has the seasons and the tactics.
Fishing times for Great Lake today
Hour-by-hour bite forecast for today from sunrise (05:49), sunset (20:05), the moon and today's score. Tap a bar to see why.
Bite planner
Solunar majors 11:19 PM-1:19 AM and 11:48 AM-1:48 PM; minor 4:48 AM-5:48 AM. New Moon, 0% lit.
Water and weather
Live readings from Bureau of Meteorology station 139.2 (GREAT LAKE - AT POATINA INLET).
Storage level, last 30 days
Bureau of Meteorology Water Data Online, station 139.2. Latest reading 2026-11-08 00:00.
Right now
Latest readings
Air temp6 °C
High / Low12 °C / 2 °C
WindN 12 km/h, gusts 22 km/h
Pressure1019.6 hPa, steady
Sky / Rain0% cloud, 0%
Sunrise / Sunset05:49 / 20:05
MoonNew Moon, 0%
Water temp (seasonal)~13 °C est.
7-day fishing forecast: which day to fish Great Lake
The best day on Great Lake this week looks like Thursday 12 Nov, at 4 out of 5, against 3 today.
Best day this week: Thursday, 12 Nov — good at 4/5, falling pressure, usually the best window of a week.
Today, 9 Nov — Fair
A steady pattern: dawn and dusk carry the day.
- Solunar majors
- 11:19 PM-1:19 AM and 11:48 AM-1:48 PM
- Minor period
- 4:48 AM-5:48 AM
- Sun
- 05:49 to 20:05
- Moon
- New Moon, 0% lit
- Sky and wind
- Overcast, 14 km/h
- Rain chance
- 0%
Forecast-based scores, less reliable further out.
Species guide
The species that matter on Great Lake: seasons written for the southern year, and how to fish each one. Today's ratings live in the report above.
Rainbow trout
Streams from October to June in NSW and from September to June in Victoria; lakes open all year; Tasmania from the first Saturday of August
Open all year Yingina / Great Lake is open all year other than Canal Bay Rule as read from Inland Fisheries Service Tasmania on 2026-09-23.
The stocked lakes of the Snowy Mountains, the Victorian highlands and the Tasmanian central plateau. Closed seasons apply on the rivers: check the state rules. Prime. Shore fishing along the edges with bait, spinners and flies, and the rivers if the season is open.
Brown trout
Streams from October to June in NSW and from September to June in Victoria; lakes open all year; Tasmania from the first Saturday of August
Open all year Yingina / Great Lake is open all year other than Canal Bay Rule as read from Inland Fisheries Service Tasmania on 2026-09-23.
The wild trout of the highland rivers and Tasmania's lakes. Spawns in autumn, hence the closed rivers through winter in NSW and Victoria. Prime. Nymphs and streamers on the rivers, and the lake edges on the overcast days.
When to come: the Great Lake 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
Rainbow trout
Brown trout
SlowPeak
Water temperature through the year
Typical surface temperature for this water type in degrees Celsius; today is around 13 °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 Great Lake 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. Rainbow trout led the card at excellent. High of 9 °C, wind to 19 km/h.
Sat, Nov 7
3/5 Fair. Fish the windows. A steady pattern: dawn and dusk carry the day. Rainbow trout led the card at excellent. High of 4 °C, wind to 26 km/h.
Fri, Nov 6
3/5 Fair. Fish the windows. A steady pattern: dawn and dusk carry the day. Rainbow trout led the card at excellent. High of 11 °C, wind to 32 km/h.
Before you go
Licence
Tasmanian Inland Angling Licence, from A$29.00, the same for residents and visitors. Details and where to buy →
Regulations
Size and bag limits, closed seasons and marine park zones are set by IFS Tasmania and change: confirm the current rules on the agency page linked from the Tasmania licence page before you keep anything.
Access
Anyone 14 or over needs the Inland Fisheries Service angling licence here, sold for one rod or two; our Tasmania licence page has the 2026-27 fees.
Storage levels
Compare it with every other storage in the state on Tasmania dam levels today.
About this water
Great Lake is a lake in Tasmania, Australia, covered from the Tasmania reports and listed in all Australia waters.
Fishing Great Lake: the full guide
The lake
Yingina / Great Lake lies on Tasmania’s Central Plateau, 1,034 metres above sea level. The Inland Fisheries Service notes that it was one of Australia’s largest natural freshwater lake systems before it was first dammed in 1916; the Miena dam followed in 1922, a rock-fill dam downstream in 1967, raised in 1982, and when full the lake covers 17,610 hectares. It is a Hydro Tasmania storage whose level rises and falls with the hydro year, moving its shoreline of rock, sand and drowned scrub, and the service manages it as a Premium Wild Trout Fishery. It is fished from the shore at Miena and around the lake, and from boats along the drop-offs. This page reads the storage level from the Bureau of Meteorology’s Water Data Online at the Poatina inlet, with the date and time of the reading.
Species and seasons
Brown trout were first released here in 1870, and today, the service says, the fishery is dominated by browns of 0.75 to 1.5 kilograms, with rainbow trout about a tenth of the catch; enhancing the rainbows is the service’s main goal, while the browns sustain themselves. Set-rod bait fishing with mudeyes, crickets or worms is popular along most shores, polaroiding the edges on a sunny day suits the fly angler, beetle falls and hatches from late December to February give dry-fly fishing, and trolling deep lures just above the weed beds is widely used. The lake is open all year except Canal Bay, which has a shorter season to protect spawning fish, from 28 November 2026 to 28 March 2027 this year; Canal Bay and Tods Corner are for artificial lures and flies only.
Reading this report for Great Lake
The level is in the report and the 30-day chart, and it matters because a rising lake floods new ground where the browns feed while a low lake exposes the flats and pushes the fish to the drop-offs. The wind row is the number to respect: the plateau makes weather of its own, and a big lake in a westerly is dangerous for small boats, while the lee shores fish. Pressure and sky build the score, the water temperature is an estimate for an alpine lake and the page says so, and the planner shows which day to take. Snow can fall on the plateau in any month.
Licence, access and rules
Anyone 14 or over needs the Inland Fisheries Service angling licence here, sold for one rod or two; our Tasmania licence page has the 2026-27 fees. The bag limit is 12 trout, with a 300-millimetre minimum for browns, a 400-millimetre minimum for rainbows and no more than three rainbows. All waters flowing into Great Lake, and the water within 50 metres below where they enter it, are closed at all times. The Inland Fishing Code and the lake’s regulations are on the pages in the sources.
Common questions
When is Great Lake open for fishing?
All year, except Canal Bay, which opens in late November and closes in late March; for 2026-27 the dates are 28 November 2026 and 28 March 2027.
What are the bag and size limits at Great Lake?
Twelve trout a day, browns from 300 millimetres and rainbows from 400 millimetres, with no more than three rainbows; inflowing streams are closed.
Is fishing good at Great Lake right now?
Check the daily report at the top of this page: it is regenerated every morning from live data. Today's read: Fair. Fish the windows. A steady pattern: dawn and dusk carry the day.
Nearby waters
Where this page's numbers come from
- Storage and river readings
- Bureau of Meteorology, Water Data Online, station 139.2 — GREAT LAKE - AT POATINA INLET
- 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.