Where and when to catch Eastern Blue Groper 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.
Line fishing for eastern blue groper in NSW is prohibited until 28 February 2028, and spearfishing for them is always prohibited. Release any groper immediately.
The eastern blue groper is the NSW marine emblem and probably the most recognisable fish on the state's rock platforms: a big, curious, thick-lipped wrasse that will follow a snorkeller around a bay. It is protected from line fishing in NSW and has been off-limits to spearfishing since 1969, so this page is about knowing the fish, avoiding it and releasing it well, not about catching one. It turns up as a by-catch for anyone fishing crab or cunjevoi baits off the rocks for drummer and bream.
Western Australian limits don't apply in New South Wales.
Where to Catch Eastern Blue Groper in NSW
Groper live along ocean rock platforms and inshore reef the length of the NSW coast, most commonly in kelp and weed-covered gutters close to the rocks. The spots below are ones where anglers are likely to meet one.
Groper take crab, cunjevoi, prawn and shellfish baits meant for drummer, bream and blackfish, so a hookup on a red crab off the rocks is the usual way one turns up. Where they're protected that is not a reason to fish for them: if groper are mouthing your bait, move or change baits.
Lures
Not a lure fish. They are curious and will follow a diver or a slowly sinking bait, but deliberately casting lures at them is targeting, and that's not allowed where they're protected.
Rigs
There is no groper rig to recommend. What matters is release gear: a long-nose pliers or dehooker to get the hook out fast, and a leader you're prepared to cut close to the hook if it's swallowed.
Technique
If one takes your bait, don't bully it out of the wash with heavy drag and drag it over rock. Get it to the edge, unhook it in the water if you can, and if it has to come up, wet your hands, support its belly, keep it horizontal and get it back in within seconds. A deep-hooked fish does better with the line cut short than with a hook ripped out.
Best Time
They feed by day around the reef and rest in caves and crevices at night. That matters only for the angler who wants to avoid them: crab baits in daylight over shallow reef are the most likely to attract one.
Females and young groper are brown, red-brown or greenish, not blue. Anglers who think they've caught a 'red groper' or 'brown groper' have usually caught a female eastern blue groper, and the same release rules apply.
Identification
Also known asBlue groper, groper, red groper or brown groper (females)
A large, heavy-bodied wrasse with thick fleshy lips, big peg-like front teeth, large scales and a broad square tail. Large adults grow a hump on the forehead. Colour depends on sex and age: adult males are bright cobalt to navy blue, often with yellow or orange lines around the eye; females are reddish brown, often with a darker red spot on each scale; juveniles are greenish or grey-brown with blotches. Brown and red fish are still blue groper, which catches people out. They are wrasses, not true gropers, and have nothing to do with the big Queensland groper (a rock cod). A close relative, the western blue groper, lives on the southern and western coasts; on the reefs where the eastern fish lives, nothing else looks like it.
Size & Growth
Slow growing and long lived. Typical growth is about 48 cm at 10 years, 62 cm at 20 and 73 cm at 30, and they can live to around 35 years and reach about 1.2 m and 18 kg. Every groper starts life as a female; the dominant females change sex and colour to become blue males, usually at around 50 cm and 10 years or more. That slow, sex-changing life is exactly why the big blue males are so easy to fish out of a reef.
Diet & Habitat
Adults live on exposed coastal and offshore rocky reefs from the surface to 60 m and more, and are most at home along ocean rock platforms, kelp and weedy reef. Juveniles settle in seagrass beds in bays and estuaries before moving out to the reef. A harem of one big male, several females and juveniles often holds the same patch of reef for years. They crush hard-shelled prey with strong throat teeth: crabs, sea urchins (which they flip over to open), mussels, snails and other shellfish, plus prawns.
Eating Quality
Not an option in NSW: it's protected from line fishing and spearfishing, so any groper goes straight back. Check NSW DPIRD for the current rules.