Island Point Reserve (Harvey Estuary)

Status first: Island Point is a shore-crabbing spot before it is anything else, and blue swimmer crabbing is closed here from 1 September to 30 November, with a second Peel-specific order closing crab fishing from 1 September to 31 October. The reserve itself is open. It runs to 70 hectares of bush on the south-eastern shore of the Harvey Estuary at Herron, on Pindjarup Noongar Country, and its defining feature is a sheltered beach dropping onto shallow, wadeable flats. There is no jetty and no formal boat ramp — a small beach launch for dinghies and kayaks is the extent of it. When the season is on, this is the shore-crabbing address the Mandurah Mail named alongside Herron Point in its 2018 crabbing round-up, for anyone without a boat.

Shore crabbing here is the spot-and-scoop version rather than the drop-a-net-from-a-boat version: wading shoes, a rigid scoop net, and water clear enough to see a crab through. Clarity is the whole game, and the standing local read on the Harvey Estuary is that crabs turn up the length of the shoreline wherever the water is clear enough to spot them. Weed load is the usual spoiler and it shifts week to week, so a stretch that produced last month can be unfishable this one. The fishing alongside it is light lure work off the beach and out over the flats, because the water is too shallow and too protected to justify sitting on a heavy bait. Kayakers launch off the same beach and reach water the waders cannot.

Crabs are what the sources actually document here, and they are shut right now — blue swimmers until 30 November, and the 2007 Peel Inlet and Harvey Estuary Crabs Order closes crab fishing outright until 31 October, while DPIRD's guides treat all crab fishing here as shut until 30 November, so treat November as closed either way. When the blue swimmer season is open the Peel-Harvey rules are 127mm across the carapace, a bag of 10 per person and a boat limit of 20 with two or more licensed fishers aboard, with no female sub-limit, and that 10 is double the Swan-Canning number. Berried females are totally protected everywhere, and undersize or egg-carrying crabs go back before you pull the next net. The fish evidence at this reserve is thinner: lure fishing is attested here by name, and black bream and flathead are the Harvey Estuary's standard light-tackle targets, at 250mm with a bag of 6 and 300mm with a bag of 8 respectively. Expect a crabbing trip with a rod in the car rather than the reverse.

Come on a calm morning before the sea breeze puts chop across the flats, because chop kills the visibility that shore crabbing depends on. Check the weed before committing to a stretch of shore, since the estuary moves its weed banks around and a clear patch is worth walking for. Take repellent, because this is a Ramsar wetland and it behaves like one after dusk. A 2024 visitor found the signage poor enough to lose the trail, so work out where the beach and the trailheads are while it is still light.

End of Island Point Road, off Old Coast Road at Herron, roughly 100km south of Perth and about an hour and a half in the car. The access road is unsealed, which is worth knowing after rain. Parking is free and there is plenty of it, and the day-use area carries clean public toilets, picnic tables with shade, barbecue areas, a basic playground and an elevated bird-nest viewing path. Two walk trails leave from the reserve, the Bobtail Loop at 3.3km and the Possum Loop at 2.3km, though a 2024 visitor found the signage poor enough to lose the route. The formed day-use area is the mobility-friendly part, while the soft flats and the beach are not, and there is no lighting anywhere in the reserve. No fees or opening hours are published, and the Shire of Murray can close a locality to fishing by posting a notice, so read the signs on arrival.

Sheltered estuary shore with no swell and very little energy — the whole system averages about 2m deep and the flats here are far shallower than that. The controlling variable is water clarity, because shore crabbing is a sight fishery before it is anything else. Wind matters mainly for the chop it puts across the surface, which is why calm mornings before the sea breeze are the window and a windy afternoon is a wasted drive. Weed cover varies through the season and can shut a stretch of shoreline down entirely. The estuary warms quickly, and that is what drives the crab and light-tackle seasons once the closure lifts.

Mosquitoes are the specific, repeated warning here, and a February 2026 visitor summed the place up as beware mosquitoes in season and especially after dusk, would not swim here. The flats are shallow, weedy and soft underfoot and the weed cover changes week to week, so pick wading routes across firmer ground rather than walking blind. The access road is unsealed, and the trail signage was poor enough in October 2024 for a visitor to lose the route entirely. There is no shade out on the flats and no lighting anywhere in the reserve, so an after-dark walk back to the car needs a head torch.

No. Blue swimmer crabbing is closed from 1 September to 30 November each year across the whole Peel-Harvey system, and a second order closes crab fishing from 1 September to 31 October. Both bind shore crabbers, not just boats. DPIRD's own guides go further and describe the whole area as closed to all crab fishing until 30 November, so treat November as shut for every crab. The current rules reopen the season on 1 December, and DPIRD's proposal to shift that to 1 January has been consulted on but is not gazetted.

In the Peel-Harvey, when the season is open, the limit is 10 blue swimmer crabs per person per day at a minimum 127mm carapace width, measured across the widest part of the shell from spike tip to spike tip. The boat limit is 20 with two or more licensed fishers aboard, and there is no female sub-limit here. That bag of 10 is double the Swan and Canning figure, so the metro number does not travel south. Berried females are totally protected, and undersize or egg-carrying crabs go back before you pull the next net.

No. There is a small beach launch suitable for dinghies and kayaks, and that is the whole of it — no jetty, no formal ramp. The sheltered beach and the shallow flats in front of it are the fishing and crabbing platform. Herron Point, two kilometres north-east on the same shore, has the boat ramp if you need one.

Clean public toilets, picnic tables with shade, barbecue areas, a basic playground, an elevated bird-nest viewing path and free parking. Two walk trails run from the reserve, the Bobtail Loop at 3.3km and the Possum Loop at 2.3km. The access road, Island Point Road off Old Coast Road, is unsealed, there is no lighting, and visitors have reported the trail signage as poor.

About 100km south, or roughly an hour and a half of driving, at the end of Island Point Road off Old Coast Road at Herron. It sits on the Harvey Estuary rather than the Peel Inlet, which catches people out because Island Point Road runs east off the highway and looks inland on a map.