Australian Salmon
Where and when to catch Australian Salmon in New South Wales: the NSW season, the spots in our guide that hold them, and where to find NSW's current size and bag limits.
- Size
- Up to about 10kg, commonly 2–5kg
- NSW season
- Year-round
- NSW spots
- 56
Overview
In New South Wales, Australian salmon are a winter fish. The eastern species schools along the open coast in big numbers once the water cools, from Port Stephens and Stockton Bight down through Newcastle, the Central Coast, Sydney and the Illawarra, and it's often the first fish to find a chrome slug at sunrise. They're about in smaller numbers most of the year, but the run on the beaches and headlands builds from late autumn and usually peaks between June and September. They're a light-tackle bucket-list fish and an underrated eat if you bleed them, though most of the state still calls them bait.
NSW Size & Bag Limits
NSW limits for Australian Salmon are set by NSW DPIRD and change from time to time, so we link them rather than copy them. Check NSW DPIRD's limits before you fish.
Western Australian limits don't apply in New South Wales.
Where to Catch Australian Salmon in NSW
Australian salmon are listed at over 50 NSW spots, almost all of them open-coast beaches, headlands and breakwalls. Look for the diving birds first, then the deep gutters and the white water off the rocks.
Sydney Harbour
Sydney East & Botany
Sydney Northern Beaches
Sutherland & Port Hacking
Central Coast
Newcastle & Lake Macquarie
Port Stephens & Hunter
Illawarra
How to Catch
Best Baits
Whole pilchards on ganged hooks, pilchard or salmon fillet strips, cockles and pipis, beach worms, whitebait; small strips or prawn for salmon trout
Lures
Chrome slugs and metal slices, Halco Twisty-style spoons, small stickbaits and poppers, soft plastics; small metals and bait jigs for salmon trout
Rigs
A ganged rig of three 3/0–4/0 hooks for whole pilchards, or a paternoster with a strip bait from the beach. A 3–4 m surf rod casts both. For lures, a medium spinning outfit with a 7–10 kg leader. For salmon trout off a jetty or wall, a light rod, a small float or bait jig and size 6–8 hooks.
Technique
Find the bait and the fish follow. On the beach, read the gutters and fish the deeper, darker water, often closer in than you'd expect. Cast metals into the wash and wind fast with the odd pause, or soak a ganged pilchard in a gutter. When birds are working a school, cast past it and wind through it. Salmon jump and run hard, so keep the drag light enough to stop the hooks pulling, and use the waves to land them. For salmon trout, berley with bread or pollard and fish small baits under a float.
Best Time
Dawn and dusk are prime, and a moving tide with a bit of swell keeps them feeding. Overcast days can fire all day. The runs are seasonal and differ by coast, so check the local season; salmon trout are around for much more of the year in sheltered water.
- NSW salmon are the eastern species, which spawns in the surf in late spring and summer further south and runs up the NSW coast in big schools through the cooler months.
- NSW sets a salmon bag limit. Check NSW DPIRD's saltwater table before you keep any.
Identification
Also known as Salmon, blackback, salmon trout (juveniles)
Torpedo-shaped, dark blue-green to olive across the back with bright silver flanks, bright yellow pectoral fins, a deeply forked tail with a dark margin, and rows of gold-brown spots on the upper body that are clearest on smaller fish. The scales feel smooth and the teeth are tiny; if it has proper cutting teeth you've caught a tailor. The real confusion is with Australian herring, because a 25 cm salmon trout and a big herring look almost the same in the bucket. Herring have black tips on the tail lobes, a bigger eye and scales that feel rough when you run a thumb towards the head. There are eastern and western species of Australian salmon, separable only by counting gill rakers, and neither has anything to do with a true salmon beyond the name.
Size & Growth
Juveniles, the 20–35 cm "salmon trout", school in sheltered water for their first few years. Adults on the open beaches mostly run 45–70 cm and 1.5–5 kg, a 6 kg fish is a good one, and the species tops out around 90 cm and 9–10 kg. They mature at about four years and live for a decade or more. Size within a school is remarkably uniform, so what you catch first is usually what you'll catch all session.
Diet & Habitat
Salmon eat small schooling baitfish, pilchards, whitebait, hardyheads and small squid, and also graze krill and other small crustaceans. Adults work the surf zone, the back of a bar, rock platforms, reef edges and breakwall corners, wherever swell concentrates bait, and often give themselves away with diving birds and a big dark patch in the water. Juveniles hold in bays, harbours and lower estuaries until they're big enough to join the schools on the open coast. Adults travel long distances along the coast to spawn, which is why runs come and go.
Eating Quality
Average fresh, very good smoked. The flesh is dark pink, firm, strong-flavoured and on the oily side. Bleed it the moment it's landed and ice it hard; an unbled salmon is genuinely unpleasant. Smaller fish and salmon trout eat noticeably cleaner than big breeders. Cooked fresh, do it the same day, trim every scrap of the dark bloodline and lean on bold flavours such as curries, fish cakes or a hot barbecue. Hot-smoked salmon and smoked salmon pâté are its finest hour. It freezes better than most oily fish if filleted, skinned and vac-sealed, and it's excellent cut bait for mulloway, sharks and tailor.
Guides Featuring Australian Salmon
Australian Salmon elsewhere: Western Australia · South Australia