A Colac district police officer has issued 35 COVID tickets for $1817 each

News the West Barwon Reservoir, near Forrest, south-east of Colac, had reached capacity and the spillway was flowing for the first time in nearly a decade proved a powerful lure for people to travel more than five kilometres from home during the lockdown.

It's understood the local Forrest police officer issued the tickets during the statewide Coronavirus lockdown, that was only lifted for regional Victorians at midnight on Monday this week.

Regional Victorians can now legally go and have a look at the dam spillway.

Colac highway patrol police officers have also been busy performing automatic number plate recognition duties to ensure Melbourne residents still in lockdown dodn't sneak out to regional Victoria.

Those breaches would attract similar fines.

The West Barwon Reservoir - which supplies Geelong, the Bellarine Peninsula and Surf Coast - is full for the first time since 2014.

At capacity, the reservoir holds almost 21.5 billion litres of water - about 8600 Olympic sized swimming pools and enough for about six months' supply.

A wet finish to 2020 and wet start to this year has been a welcome change, helping to fill the reservoir which has experienced a long term average drop in inflows of 32 per cent since 1997.

Barwon Water managing director Tracey Slatter was reported saying the reservoir spilling would contribute to already high river levels caused by the naturally wet conditions, which may lead to minor flooding on land immediately downstream of the dam.

Drone footage of spectacular reservoir spillway

She said Barwon Water had been in contact with neighbouring landowners, Colac Otway Shire, VicRoads and other stakeholders to ensure everyone's safety, and while some properties may experience some flooding no houses were expected to be impacted.

Motorists in the area are urged to observe any flood signage and temporary road closures.