Adelaide bite times & fishing forecast

Adelaide fishing times, planned before you go

Bite Compass is a free fishing almanac, and this is its South Australian edition. Instead of juggling a tide chart, a wind app and a moon calendar, you get the best fishing times for Adelaide and the gulf jetties in one place — every spot scored hour by hour for the next seven days, so you can pick your morning before you have found the car keys.

Today's Adelaide bite times and feeding windows

The bite score leans heavily on solunar feeding windows — the major windows when the moon is overhead or underfoot, and the minor windows around moonrise and moonset, all computed for Adelaide's longitude and clock. Fish feed hardest in those windows, harder still when one overlaps dawn, dusk or a tide change. Open any spot to see its windows for the day.

Gulf fishing conditions at a glance

A good feeding window still needs fishable conditions. Every forecast factors in live tides, wind speed and direction, swell and water temperature, then weighs them against moon phase and light. The gulfs add two local quirks the score already knows about: the afternoon sea breeze that chops up a west-facing jetty, and the fortnightly dodge tide, when the water barely moves for a day and neither do the fish.

Where the fish are biting in South Australia

Gulf St Vincent is jetty country for tommy ruff, yellowfin whiting and blue swimmer crabs within walking distance of a car park, with King George whiting off the deeper ends outside the 1 March to 30 June spawning closure. Southern calamari and garfish are closed in the gulf after the 2026 algal bloom, so the regulars have quietly gone back to snook, winter salmon and the long wait for a mulloway. Cross to the Spencer Gulf side — Port Hughes, Whyalla, Port Lincoln — and garfish are still on the menu; round the tip to Victor Harbor and Port Elliot and you are in the South East zone, where squid, gar and snapper are fair game. Every closure is spelled out on the spot page it applies to, because "I thought that was only Adelaide" is not a defence.

How the bite forecast works

Each spot page scores the day out of 100 from solunar feeding windows, tide movement, wind and water temperature, then shows the hours worth fishing. Read how the score is built.