Adelaide is known for its relatively sheltered gulf waters, metro jetties and low-energy beaches.

Rock platforms within the state’s St Vincent and Spencer Gulfs tend to be safer than those outside the gulfs.

The two gulfs form a substantial portion of the state’s coastline, with Adelaide located on the Fleurieu Peninsula on the east side of the Gulf of St Vincent.

Gulf waters are mostly sandy and shallow, with extensive seagrass beds.

What the gulfs lack in large sportfish is made up for by easy fishing for common bread and butter species.

The proliferation of jetties is a special feature for landbased fishos, both near the city and at coastal townships around the gulfs and in the large bays of the west coast.

Jetties were built so ships could be loaded with wheat or mining ore. Some jetties still serve this purpose.

Other jetties are now used solely for fishing, and towns with a good jetty invariably attract more holidaymakers.

Adelaide itself has several metro jetties, as well as the productive Port River estuary, which includes the harbour entrance rock walls.

Adelaide’s metro jetties are Brighton, Glenelg, Henley, Grange, Semaphore and Largs Bay.

West Lakes is a reclaimed marsh that is now a saltwater system and a great spot to target large black bream.

Outside of the gulfs are true surf beaches that face the mighty Southern Ocean.

Kangaroo Island is a popular fishing holiday and boating destination for Adelaide folk, with the southerly half of the island facing the Southern Ocean, and the north coast more sheltered.

It has beach, creek and rock fishing.

Boating facilities in South Australia are generally excellent, with protected, all-tide dual-lane ramps and caravan parks at most coastal towns.

Adelaide fishermen looking for a good day trip generally head south as the coast north of the city is shallow and drab, although crab raking has a strong seasonal following in this area.

Beaches and rock platforms immediately south of Adelaide are quite sheltered, but the southern side of Adelaide’s Fleurieu Peninsula has the more exposed Waitpinga and Parsons surf beaches that fish well for salmon, mulloway and occasional tailor.

Victor Harbour is a popular daytrip, with good fishing off the Granite Island causeway and Screwpile Jetty, and at Port Elliot.

Port Noarlunga’s Onkaparinga River is a popular destination for fishos chasing black bream, and small mulloway are also caught.

Rapid Bay has a good fishing jetty, also within day trip distance of Adelaide, with several other good fishing spots located on the run south down the peninsula to Cape Jervis.

Weekend or longer trips from Adelaide may be spent heading around the top of the gulfs to various York Peninsula fishing destinations, or the Eyre Peninsula’s Port Lincoln.

Further afield, the state’s west has a coastline as wild and pristine as a fisho could ask for.

Parts of the west coast are remote and require a 4WD for beach access, while some long stretches of beach can’t be accessed at all. Yalata is arguably the premium surf destination for those chasing trophy mulloway.

The east coast through to Port Macdonnell and Robe is home to bluefin tuna and crayfish for those who have suitable boats, as well as the usual bread and butter species, with Kingston and Cape Jaffa also having a strong following among fishing holidaymakers.

South Australia’s top species are king george whiting, snapper, yellowfin and silver whiting, tommy ruff (WA herring), yelloweye mullet, Australian salmon, black bream, mulloway, squid, blue crabs and garfish.

Yellowtail kingfish, samsonfish and bluefin tuna are the state’s large sportfish, along with thresher, mako and whaler sharks.

Big calamari squid are common throughout the gulfs, as is the world’s largest cuttlefish species, which spawns en masse near Whyalla.

Other locally popular species are red mullet (goatfish), leatherjackets, sand flathead and silver trevally.

Snook, a smaller relative of northern barracuda, are common and a popular target.

Barracouta are of interest to some fishos and they grow large in SA waters.

Dusky morwong (locally called strongfish) and magpie morwong are often seen in seagrass beds by divers but they rarely take baits and are poor eating.

Offshore reefs produce mainly blue morwong, pink snapper, harlequin fish, blue groper, big leatherjackets and samsonfish.

Warm waters from Western Australia’s Leeuwin Current sometimes pass the state in summer and bring surprise catches of tropical species such as mahi mahi, but these can in no way be relied upon.

Crayfish are common mostly outside the gulfs, and blue swimmer and two-spot sand crabs thrive within the gulfs, with smaller populations of blue crabs in inlets along the ocean coast.

Small salmon are called “salmon trout” in South Australia, and tommy ruffs are called “tommies”.

The state has a large network of marine parks and some small aquatic sanctuary areas.

Be sure to know where they are before fishing, see the links below.

Adelaide freshwater fishing

Adelaide is the capital city of Australia’s driest state, but there is freshwater fishing to be had.

The lower Murray River empties into the sea at the Coorong mouth, 80km south-east of Adelaide, a famous mulloway haunt when floodwater flows.

The section of the Murray flowing through South Australia can fish well, with cod making a comeback in recent times, until drought hit hard in 2019.

The lower Murray has mainly carp, golden perch (also called callop, or yellowbelly), silver perch, redfin and tench.

Yabbies are at times common in streams around Adelaide.

There is a small following of die-hard trout fishers, but climate extremes have killed off some marginal trout waters, along with a push to help native non-sporting fish to thrive, instead of feral favourites like trout and redfin.

Trout are in Adelaide’s Torrens and Onkaparinga Rivers, along with carp, redfin and galaxia.

Sixth Creek, a permanent stream that flows into the upper Torrens, has had self-sustaining populations of brown and rainbow trout in the past.

Further afield, the Broughton, Hindmarsh and Finniss Rivers are the best places to find SA trout, along with some public reservoirs and private dams.

A government survey showed that redfin perch were far more common than trout in most SA streams, with the Inman, Myponga, North Para and Onkaparinga Rivers holding many redfin.

Quite a strong population of tench was found in Sturt Creek.

All these streams are an easy day trip for Adelaide residents.

Click here for more detailed info about SA trout waters.

The South Australian Fly Fishers Association is the focal point for gaining the latest knowledge and access to local trout waters.

The map below, adapted from a 2006 government report, shows trout availability in some of the streams that flow into the lower Murray lakes.

The state was a late starter in Australia to allow fishing in its reservoirs, but some impoundments have been opened to fishing, with more planned.

Fish stocking of reservoirs took off only after years of lobbying, with Warren, Beetaloo, Bundaleer, South Para and Myponga Reservoirs stocked with golden perch, silver perch and murray cod.

More reservoirs may be in the pipeline for public access, however there has been ongoing debate over stocking trout versus native fish.

The lower Torrens River flows through Adelaide’s CBD and this section has plenty of large carp. Don’t discount carp as a sportfish, they fight hard and large fish can be difficult to tempt.

How to fish Adelaide – bait, lures & tackle

Cockles (pipis) are a popular bait in SA.

These are found in the sand of some surf beaches, as are beach worms.

Tubeworms are collected in muddy flats areas, and are a prime bait.

There is seasonal run of bloodworms, which are sold at tackle shops.

Worms found in rotting seaweed, a common feature of SA beaches, are good for whiting.

Maggots (gents) are commonly used for garfish and tommies – they are bred in rotting meat, then purged in wheat bran.

Mulloway are best targeted with livebait.

Squid are readily available in SA and make good bait, being particularly effective as fresh or live bait for mulloway and kingfish.

Of the packet baits, prawns, bluebait, whitebait and pilchards work well on juvenile salmon, tommy ruffs, bream and snapper.

Pilchards presented on ganged hooks work well for surf salmon.

Tommy ruff fillets make great snapper bait.

A local species of shellfish called razorfish is a good whiting bait. It is found on tidal flats.

Yellow-eye mullet will take small flesh baits, with mice meat being popular.

Paternoster rigs are standard fare when beach and boat fishing in SA, using light star sinkers and small long-shank hooks.

For black bream, running sinker or weightless rigs work well. Gar and tommy ruffs are often targeted using float-fishing methods, and floats can be useful when rock fishing for sweep.

Lures: Small soft plastics and minnows work well on black bream, with chrome slices the best casting lure for salmon, snook and silver trevally.

Squid jigs are a must in the tackle box, and large baited jigs work well on big SA squid.

Adelaide fishing weather & tides

Autumn and winter provide the most stable weather, with more wind in spring and summer.

Sea breezes blow hard in the warm months as the land heats up, and temperatures can sore above 40C for days at a time.

April, May and June are the best boating months, although storm fronts come through in winter, bringing gale-force winds.

Keep an eye on the weather forecasts.

In the Southern Ocean a big swell often occurs, and boaters must beware breaking waves over reefs.

Much of the state has a relatively small tidal range, to about 2m, but this increases to almost 4m in the upper reaches of the two gulfs as the water mass is pushed up into a smaller area.

The gulfs have a tidal quirk called “dodge tides” – an extended period of little movement when fishing is usually poor.

Port Lincoln has a localised tidal quirk of a one-tide day.

The state’s small tidal range makes boating easier, but small tidal movement and clear water can make fish bite less aggressively.

Special features

South Aussies (Croweaters) like to “dab” for garfish in the shallows at night.

A spotlight is used to dazzle the fish, which are caught (dabbed) with a handnet.

Another popular pastime is “raking” blue crabs in the shallows in summer.

Crabs are also caught from jetties and boats with baited drop nets.

Flounder are found throughout the state in sheltered tidal shallows, and are speared at night with a light.

The local yellow-eye mullet is one of the few mullet species that scoff meat baits, and curried raw mince meat was a favoured bait for many years during the autumn mullet run on the beaches.

Crayfish are caught on the state’s oceanic coast, and these southern crays are among the tastiest in the world.

South Australia is home to the great white shark, which give small boats a nudge from time to time.

The cownose ray, locally called eagle ray, is a fighting fish that often jumps when hooked, unlike the huge smooth stingrays that are also common.

Gummy and school sharks are popular, but less popular are fiddler rays, shovelnose sharks and Port Jackson sharks (doggies).

Elephant fish are caught in SA waters.

Big blue groper are caught in the more remote coastal rocky areas.

In recent times there have been severe restrictions on snapper fishing, because of declining stocks.

Adelaide also has some language quirks, perhaps because it was a free settler state … you go to the d’ah’nce (not the dance), dams are called reservoirs, rock walls are called breakwaters, and the word “river” often appears first in titles, eg River Murray. Golden perch (yellowbelly) are often called callop and the small western striped trumpeter are almost always called “shitties”.

Adelaide (Outer Harbour) tides
West Beach webcam
SA fishing regulations
SA marine parks
SA stocked dams
SA dam water levels
Murray River fishing spots

NOTE: Special snapper rules apply in South Australia – more info here.

Email corrections, additions, pictures or video here.