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Jetty / Harbour

Silver Trevally

Pseudocaranx georgianus

Where and when to catch Silver Trevally 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. Called Skipjack Trevally (Skippy) on our Western Australian guide.

Size
Over 90cm offshore, commonly 400–800g at the jetties
NSW season
Year-round
NSW spots
66

Overview

Silver trevally are a bread-and-butter fish right along the NSW coast, from Port Stephens through Newcastle, Lake Macquarie, the Central Coast and Sydney to the Illawarra. They work the breakwalls, harbour points, bridges, ocean rocks and estuary channels year-round, school thicker through the cooler months, and come up a berley trail like they've been called for dinner. Most are 25–40 cm, the odd one goes well over a kilo, and on light gear they pull like something twice the size. They're slow-growing, and NSW stocks have declined, so keep a feed and let the rest go.

NSW Size & Bag Limits

NSW limits for Silver Trevally 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 Silver Trevally in NSW

Silver trevally are listed at over 60 NSW spots, including most of the breakwalls, harbour points and wharves, the estuary channels and bridges, and the ocean rock platforms.

Sydney Harbour

Balmoral Beach (Rocky Point / Hunters Bay) Bottle and Glass Point (Nielsen Park, Vaucluse) Cabarita Park (Parramatta River) Clifton Gardens (Chowder Bay) Hornby Lighthouse / South Head Kissing Point Park (Parramatta River) Middle Head Mrs Macquaries Point / Chair Parsley Bay (Vaucluse) Rose Bay (wharf and flats) Washaway Beach (North Harbour)

Sydney East & Botany

Ben Buckler (North Bondi) Brighton-Le-Sands / Dolls Point (Lady Robinsons Beach) Browns Rock (La Perouse) Captain Cook Bridge (Georges River) Clovelly / Gordons Bay Frenchmans Bay / Congwong (La Perouse) Kurnell (Silver Beach groynes) Malabar (Long Bay ledges) Yarra Bay (Phillip Bay)

Sydney Northern Beaches

Barrenjoey Headland (Palm Beach) Long Reef Rock Platform Manly North Harbour (Fairlight) Mona Vale Headland (Bongin Bongin) Narrabeen Lagoon Entrance Roseville Bridge (Middle Harbour) The Spit (Middle Harbour)

Sutherland & Port Hacking

Bass & Flinders Point / Salmon Haul (Cronulla) Bonnie Vale (Bundeena) Bundeena Wharf Cronulla Beach & The Alley Darook Park (Cronulla) Garie Beach Headlands (Royal National Park) Jibbon Beach (Bundeena) Lilli Pilli Point & Baths Swallow Rock Reserve (Grays Point) Wally's Wharf (Dolans Bay)

Central Coast

Bateau Bay Box Head Brooklyn (Hawkesbury River) Ettalong Beach Norah Head Patonga (Hawkesbury River) Rip Bridge (Brisbane Water) Terrigal Haven / The Skillion The Entrance Channel (Tuggerah Lake) Toukley Bridge (Wallarah Point) Woy Woy Channel

Newcastle & Lake Macquarie

Belmont Foreshore & Wharf Catherine Hill Bay Headland & Jetty Horseshoe Beach / Newcastle Harbour Nobbys Breakwall (Newcastle) Pelican Foreshore Stockton Breakwall (Newcastle) Swansea Channel Breakwall (Lucy's Wall)

Port Stephens & Hunter

Little Beach (Nelson Bay) Moira Parade Wharf Nelson Bay Breakwall

Illawarra

Bellambi Boat Harbour Breakwall Bombo Beach Coalcliff Rock Platform Port Kembla Breakwall Red Point (Hill 60) Shellharbour Boat Harbour Stanwell Park Beach Wollongong Harbour (Belmore Basin)

How to Catch

Best Baits

Peeled prawn, pilchard strips, squid strips, pipis and cockles, beach and tube worms, bread in a berley trail

Lures

Small soft plastics (grubs and minnows), small metal slices, micro jigs, bait jigs, small blades

Rigs

A light running sinker or paternoster rig with size 4–1 hooks for the bottom, or a lightly weighted float rig drifted down a berley trail. 3–6 kg line and a fluorocarbon leader; trevally can be line-shy in clear water. Their mouths are soft, so a long, forgiving rod and a light drag land more of them.

Technique

Berley and fish light. A steady trickle of chopped pilchard, bread or pollard brings a school up from the bottom and holds it, and an unweighted or lightly weighted bait drifted down the trail is deadly. On lures, hop a small plastic or blade slowly along the bottom beside the pylons or the edge of the reef. Hooked fish run hard and circle; don't horse them or the hook tears out.

Best Time

Through the day, especially around the tide changes and on a moving tide. Morning and afternoon sessions are usually best, and they'll feed after dark under lights. They're caught year-round, with the local peak varying by coast.

  • NSW sets a size limit for silver trevally and a bag shared across the trevallies. Check NSW DPIRD's saltwater table before you keep any.

Identification

Also known as Trevally, white trevally, blurter, skippy

A deep, flattened silver fish with a greenish-blue back, a soft dark smudge on the upper edge of the gill cover, and the row of hard bony scutes along the rear of the lateral line that every trevally carries. Juveniles and sub-adults usually show a yellow stripe along the middle of the flank and yellow along the fin bases, and the long, scythe-shaped pectoral fins reach back almost to the tail. The fish easily mistaken for it is the small true skipjack trevally, a separate species that rarely passes 20 cm and has a small, sharply defined black gill spot and no yellow stripe. Small silvers also get called skippy, white trevally and silver bream depending on where you are.

Size & Growth

Shore and jetty fish are mostly 25–40 cm and 300 g to a kilo. A 50 cm fish is a good one, anything over 3 kg will make a mess of light line, and the species passes 90 cm on deep offshore ground. They're slow-growing and long-lived, past 20 years and recorded at over 45, so a big silver is an old fish and worth a thought before it goes in the esky. The bigger fish move to deeper water off headlands and offshore reef as they age.

Diet & Habitat

Silver trevally eat small crustaceans, worms, prawns, molluscs and small fish, picking at the bottom and the sand around reef as often as chasing bait mid-water; their soft, toothless mouths are built for hoovering. They school around reef, rubble, weed edges, jetty pylons, breakwalls and harbour walls, and push into estuaries and channels on the tide. Juveniles stay close to shallow reef; adults favour the deeper water off headlands.

Eating Quality

Good eating with a little care. The flesh is white and firm with a stronger flavour than whiting and a dark strip down the fillet worth trimming. Bleed and ice them immediately; trevally left warm on a jetty go soft and metallic. Smaller fish are the sweeter eat. Crumb or batter the fillets, grill them skin-on, or use them in a curry. Very fresh, well-bled fish are excellent as sashimi. They freeze better than oily fish, though the texture firms up, so use frozen fillets for crumbing.

Guides Featuring Silver Trevally

Silver Trevally elsewhere: Western Australia · South Australia

← All NSW Species