Where and when to catch King Threadfin in Queensland: the QLD season, the spots in our guide that hold them, and where to find QLD's current size and possession limits.
Called King Threadfin Salmon on our Western Australian guide.
QLD limits for King Threadfin are set by Fisheries Queensland and change from time to time, so we link them rather than copy them.
Check Fisheries Queensland's limits before you fish.
Western Australian limits don't apply in Queensland.
Running sinker rig with a 4/0–5/0 circle hook and 30–40lb fluorocarbon leader on the beach, with enough lead to hold in the surf. From a boat or creek bank, a lighter unweighted live-bait rig works well on the run-in tide. Avoid heavy drag — soft mouths tear out under load.
Best Time
Caught year-round in Queensland's big rivers, with the warmer months into autumn the peak. Run-in tides in the last hour before high are the standout window, with the first of the run-out also productive, and dawn and dusk outproduce midday.
From the Boyne River and Tannum Sands north, including Gladstone, the Calliope and Fitzroy rivers and the Capricorn Coast creeks, this is crocodile country: stay back from the water's edge, don't wade, and clean fish away from the water. Be Crocwise.
Identification
Also known asThreadie, king salmon, threadfin salmon
A long silver fish with a deeply forked tail, a blunt overshot snout and the mouth set underneath — built for grubbing prawns off sand rather than chasing bait down. The family marker is the free pectoral filaments trailing below the pectoral fin: king threadfin usually carry five of them, blue threadfin four, and counting is the quickest way to tell the two apart in the same gutter. King threadfin also grow far larger and have a longer pectoral fin. Against mulloway the split is easy — mulloway have a terminal mouth, no filaments, and none of the trailing threads. Anglers just say threadies.
Size & Growth
Commonly 60–90 cm and a few kilos, with metre-plus fish the mark of a good session and the biggest running past 1.5 m and 20 kg. Like barramundi they are protandrous, maturing as males and turning female at larger sizes, so the big fish on the beach are breeding females and worth the release. Check Fisheries Queensland's east-coast minimum size and possession limit before you keep one: a fish just over that minimum is still a young male and a modest feed rather than a trophy.
Eating Quality
Excellent — moist white flesh with a mild, clean flavour that holds together on the grill and does not fall apart in a pan, which puts it on a par with mulloway and ahead of most northern beach fish. Bleed at the gills and get it into an ice slurry immediately; threadfin flesh softens fast in tropical heat and a fish left in the sun for an hour is a different product. Fillets skin-on and grill or pan-fry them, or crumb the smaller fish. The larger breeders are still good but coarser, and given they are females it is worth photographing and releasing them rather than filling the esky. Freezes reasonably well vacuum-sealed for a month or two, though the texture softens slightly on thawing.