Where and when to catch Southern Calamari (Squid) 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.
Mantle up to about 50cm and 2kg+, commonly 200–500g
NSW season
Year-round
NSW spots
31
Overview
Southern calamari are a year-round fish in New South Wales, and Sydney Harbour is about as good as urban squidding gets. The harbour's weed beds and kelp edges, Botany Bay's seagrass, Port Hacking, Pittwater, and Port Stephens all hold squid, and they turn up off the Newcastle and Illawarra harbours and the weedy ocean rocks too. Most spots fish best through autumn and the cooler, clearer months. They're a target in their own right and, just as often, the first job of the day for anyone chasing kingfish.
NSW Size & Bag Limits
NSW limits for Southern Calamari (Squid) 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 Southern Calamari (Squid) in NSW
Southern calamari are listed at about 30 NSW spots, mostly the weedy, sheltered parts of Sydney Harbour, Botany Bay, Port Hacking, Pittwater and Port Stephens, plus a few harbour walls and rock platforms with clean water over weed.
Squid jigs do most of the work. A whole small fish such as a garfish, herring or mullet on a squid spike or skewer jig under a float is the classic bait method.
Lures
Squid jigs (egi) in sizes 2.5–3.5. Natural browns, oranges and greens in clear daylight, pinks, reds and glow or UV-backed jigs under lights and at low light. Go bigger and heavier in deeper water or current, smaller and lighter over shallow weed.
Rigs
Tie the jig to a 2–4 kg fluorocarbon leader with a loop knot, no sinker needed. For deeper water or current, run a light paternoster with a small sinker below and the jig above. For bait, a skewer jig with a whole fish under a large float set just above the weed.
Technique
Cast over the weed, let the jig sink to just above it (count it down), then work it back with two or three sharp lifts and a long pause. Squid follow and grab on the pause or the drop, so watch the line and feel for weight. Keep a steady, even pressure once one's on; no pumping, because the tentacles tear. At night, fish the edge of the light where the baitfish gather. Land them with the ink aimed away from you, the jetty and anyone else's white shirt.
Best Time
Dusk, dawn and the dark hours are most productive, with jetty lights the classic night session; daytime squidding works in clear water over the weed. An incoming or high tide and calm, clean water are ideal, and dirty water after a blow shuts them down. Squid are about year-round in most places, with local runs, so check the local season.
NSW sets a bag limit shared across all squid and cuttlefish. Check NSW DPIRD's saltwater table, and remember aquatic reserves and sanctuary zones in the harbour and Botany Bay have their own rules.
Identification
Also known asSquid, calamari, southern reef squid
A broad, thick mantle with fins running almost its full length, which is the quick way to separate southern calamari from arrow squid, whose short triangular fins sit at the tail end only. The colour shifts from mottled red-brown to almost translucent white depending on mood. Cuttlefish are broad and flat with an internal cuttlebone and a thin fringe of fin; octopus have no mantle fins at all. Arrow squid turn up in the same places and are perfectly edible, just softer and less prized.
Size & Growth
A good jetty calamari has a 20–30 cm mantle and weighs 300–600 g. Big ones pass 40 cm of mantle and 2 kg. They live fast, about a year from hatching to spawning, so the squid you catch this season were eggs last year. Because they spawn and hatch through much of the year, you'll see a mix of sizes, with runs of bigger squid moving inshore to spawn.
Diet & Habitat
Calamari hunt small fish, prawns and other crustaceans, shooting out two long tentacles to grab prey and holding it with eight shorter arms. They live over seagrass and broken reef in shallow water, usually right on the weed edge, and move under jetty lights at night to ambush the baitfish that gather there. Females attach clusters of white egg strands to seagrass and weed on the bottom in the shallows, which is why the best squidding is directly over the weed and why clear, calm water matters so much.
Eating Quality
Excellent. The mantle is sweet and tender, with none of the off notes you get from tired bought squid. Dispatch quickly with a squid spike for cleaner flesh, then clean the tube, pull the skin and score the inside in a diamond pattern. Cook it very fast or very slow; anything in between turns it to rubber. Fast means salt-and-pepper calamari, a hot grill or a flash through a wok; slow means an hour in a tomato braise. Very fresh squid is excellent raw. The wings and tentacles are the best part. It freezes only passably, toughening a little, so freeze it raw in portions for cooked dishes. It's also the best bait there is for kingfish, snapper and mulloway.