Rainbow trout
Excellent
Prime. Shore fishing along the edges with bait, spinners and flies, and the rivers if the season is open.
Lake Burbury Fishing Report
Updated Mon, 9 Nov 2026 from live weather and tide data
The west coast hydro lake near Queenstown: wild brown and rainbow trout, open all year as a Premium Wild Trout Fishery, with a Bureau gauge at Crotty Dam.
3/5
Fair. Fish the windows.A steady pattern: dawn and dusk carry the day.
Level
233.58 m1,093,251 ML
Air / High
9 °C / 20 °C
Wind
NE 3 km/h
Sources: Bureau of Meteorology gauge 298.1, Open-Meteo, solunar calculated for these coordinates.
Today's Fishing Report
Lake Burbury has cool water and fish holding a little deeper and slower. The gauge reads 233.58 m, easing 0.23 over the week. Today brings cloud cover, wind NE around 3 km/h, steady pressure near 1019 hPa and a high of 20 °C. Water sits around 13 °C for the season (estimated). With the new moon, the solunar majors run 11:24 PM-1:24 AM and 11:53 AM-1:53 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: 11:24 PM-1:24 AM, 11:53 AM-1:53 PM, 4:52 AM-5:52 AM. Similar at 18 °C with likely rain: fish ahead of the front. 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 Lake Burbury today
Hour-by-hour bite forecast for today from sunrise (05:53), sunset (20:10), the moon and today's score. Tap a bar to see why.
Bite planner
Solunar majors 11:24 PM-1:24 AM and 11:53 AM-1:53 PM; minor 4:52 AM-5:52 AM. New Moon, 0% lit.
Water and weather
Live readings from Bureau of Meteorology station 298.1 (BURBURY LAKE - AT CROTTY DAM).
Storage level, last 30 days
Bureau of Meteorology Water Data Online, station 298.1. Latest reading 2026-11-07 00:00.
Right now
Latest readings
Air temp9 °C
High / Low20 °C / 2 °C
WindNE 3 km/h, gusts 6 km/h
Pressure1019.3 hPa, steady
Sky / Rain68% cloud, 0%
Sunrise / Sunset05:53 / 20:10
MoonNew Moon, 0%
Water temp (seasonal)~13 °C est.
7-day fishing forecast: which day to fish Lake Burbury
The best day on Lake Burbury this week looks like Wednesday 11 Nov, at 4 out of 5, against 3 today.
Best day this week: Wednesday, 11 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
- 11:24 PM-1:24 AM and 11:53 AM-1:53 PM
- Minor period
- 4:52 AM-5:52 AM
- Sun
- 05:53 to 20:10
- Moon
- New Moon, 0% lit
- Sky and wind
- Showers, 13 km/h
- Rain chance
- 0%
Forecast-based scores, less reliable further out.
Species guide
The species that matter on Lake Burbury: 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 Lake Burbury is open all year 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 Lake Burbury is open all year 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 Lake Burbury 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 Lake Burbury 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 14 °C, wind to 11 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 9 °C, wind to 18 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 10 °C, wind to 18 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
The Tasmanian inland angling licence from the Inland Fisheries Service applies from age 14, and 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
Lake Burbury is a lake in Tasmania, Australia, covered from the Tasmania reports and listed in all Australia waters.
Fishing Lake Burbury: the full guide
The lake
Lake Burbury is one of the largest hydro impoundments on Tasmania’s west coast, close to Queenstown, and the A10 crosses the middle of it, the Inland Fisheries Service notes. Signs from the highway lead to the northern camping and launching areas; the southern camping area and ramp are reached through Queenstown on the Mt Jukes Road, and all the access roads are sealed. The Bureau of Meteorology’s gauge at the Crotty Dam supplies the level and 30-day chart on this page.
Species and seasons
The service manages Burbury as a Premium Wild Trout Fishery, open all year. It stocked the lake heavily with rainbow and brown trout before flooding, and the many spawning streams now keep both populations going naturally; most fish weigh between 500 grams and 2 kilograms. Bait, lure and fly are all allowed, with a 220 mm minimum and a bag of 20. The species card reads open all year with the rule linked, which makes Burbury a winter option when most Tasmanian waters are closed.
Where to fish it
Burbury is primarily a boat fishing lake, and trolling flatfish, cobra wobblers or deep-diving lures accounts for most of the catch, the service says; periods of low water expose some shores for bank anglers. For the fly angler, wind lanes after an early-morning midge hatch can hold surface-feeding rainbows and browns. There is a concrete ramp at Thureau Hills, west of Bradshaws Bridge, a camping and caravan area with a ramp east of the bridge, and informal camping and launching near the Darwin Dam at the southern end.
Reading the report
The service notes that Burbury can fish best on overcast days or in periods of rain, so a grey forecast here is no reason to stay home. The rain row matters for another reason: the level chart shows the lake rising after it. Burbury is exposed to extreme changes in weather and can become very rough with little warning, so the wind row decides where a boat can safely go.
Licence, access and rules
The Tasmanian inland angling licence from the Inland Fisheries Service applies from age 14, and our Tasmania licence page has the 2026-27 fees. Boats must stay out of the zones within 100 metres of the John Butters power station intake and between the signs and the Crotty Dam. The season and limits are in the Inland Fishing Code, linked in the sources with the service’s page for the lake.
Common questions
When is Lake Burbury open?
All year: the Inland Fisheries Service lists Lake Burbury among the waters open all year, and the species card shows it with the rule linked.
What methods work at Lake Burbury?
Trolling accounts for most fish, according to the Inland Fisheries Service, and fly anglers work the wind lanes after an early midge hatch. Bait, lure and fly are all allowed.
Is fishing good at Lake Burbury 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 298.1 — BURBURY LAKE - AT CROTTY 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.