Marion Bay Jetty

Marion Bay is the last town before Dhilba Guuranda-Innes National Park, and its jetty is 270 metres of timber built in 1889 to ship gypsum railed down from the Inneston mine. Grain and wool kept moving through here until 1969; today it carries anglers, a covered rotunda beside it and enough posted signage that visitors have started reviewing the signs. Visitors describe lighting on the deck, which would make it one of the few night-fishable platforms at the foot of the peninsula, where Stenhouse Bay and Port Rickaby have none — though no official source confirms it, so bring your own. Its identity is squid: the official Yorke Peninsula fishing guide calls it legendary for big squid and a visitor called it Squid Central, which makes the calamari closure hurt here more than almost anywhere else in the state. What is left is still worth the drive. The bay's beaches produce thousands of mullet from Easter onward, tommies and whiting come off the deck, and the water in front of the caravan park is a genuine place to send kids for their own dinner. This is the oceanic end of the peninsula rather than gulf water, so the fishing here answers to Investigator Strait weather.

The mullet run is the local event and the method is specific. Seaweed worms are the gun bait, dug out of the piles of decaying ribbon weed lying on the beach — the same rotting weed the tourists complain about — with mince or cockle as the fallback. Keep the tackle genuinely light, carry bread-based berley to hold a school in front of you, and work the beach rather than the deck once the run is on. Off the jetty itself the programme is float-fished baits for tommies and whiting, with a longer cast onto the weed edges for King George whiting through the cooler months. Flathead and trevally come through in the warm months, and the beaches east toward Troubridge Point are the mulloway ground at night on a big tide, which is a beach campaign rather than a jetty session. The charter fleet runs out of here for samson fish, kingfish, tuna and the deepwater redfish that South Australian boats call nannygai, so anything on the deck should be understood as a different sport to the one advertised on the boat brochures. Calamari is closed while the ban stands, and gar are closed on this side of the zone line, so berley that would normally hold them is wasted effort.

Mullet are the best-evidenced fish here at 21 cm and a Gulf St Vincent bag of 30, and the autumn run along the bay's beaches is what fills buckets. Tommy ruff carry the quiet days with a bag of 40 and no minimum. King George whiting are 32 cm here, with the halved Gulf St Vincent bag of 5 rather than the 10 that applies up the coast. Salmon are 21 cm with a two-tier bag — 20 for fish of 21 to 35 cm and 10 for anything larger — and flathead are 30 cm with a bag of 5, trevally 24 cm with a bag of 10. Mulloway off the beaches east of town are 82 cm with a bag of 2. Southern calamari and garfish are both closed here: Marion Bay sits south of the 35°S line, which puts it in the Gulf St Vincent and Kangaroo Island zone where garfish has been closed since 1 May 2026 on top of the two-gulf calamari closure, neither with an end date. Snapper is closed until at least 30 June 2027, and the western blue groper cannot be taken at any time in Investigator Strait, so one that comes up goes straight back. These waters are inside the mapped King George whiting spawning closure, which is not in force today and next runs from 1 March to 30 June 2027 — worth diarising if whiting is the reason you come.

Time a trip for Easter or just after if the mullet are the point, because that is when the run starts and the caravan park empties onto the beach. Dig the bait before you rig: seaweed worms out of the weed banks beat anything bought, and they are free. Carry a light regardless, because the lighting visitors describe on this deck appears in no official source. Read the signs on the way out rather than arguing about them later, because this deck carries more posted restrictions than most. Boat anglers heading south need the marine park zoning map, because the Chinamans Hat sanctuary zone starts about five kilometres south and everything inside it is no-take, with one carve-out about eight kilometres south-west where a separate special purpose area allows shore-based line fishing off the beach and nothing beyond casting distance. If the swell is up in the bay, the sheltered fallback is the long drive back up the peninsula rather than anything closer.

The jetty runs off the end of Slow Street and it is free — Marion Bay sits outside the national park, so no park entry fee applies until you drive west into Dhilba Guuranda-Innes. Marion Bay Caravan Park is on the foreshore, and the water directly in front of it is the recommended spot for kids to catch whiting or tommies in daylight. There is a covered rotunda beside the jetty, and a tavern and motel in town, but this is a hamlet of fewer than 200 permanent residents where roughly seven in ten houses are holiday rentals, so stock up before you arrive. The new two-lane boat ramp opened in April 2025 with a central walkway and a wave-attenuation wall, and it went straight into a local row, so what is standing there now is worth checking before you tow. The walkway on the jetty is slightly uneven and one reviewer called it un-inviting for anyone with a disability; no accessibility statement has been published. Adelaide is 283 km away and the Innes park entry station is a few minutes further west.

Marion Bay faces roughly south-east into Investigator Strait, which is the exposed, oceanic end of Yorke Peninsula rather than sheltered gulf water. Prevailing summer south-easterlies and any southerly swell put sea straight into the bay, while northerlies and north-westerlies come off the land and settle it. Seaweed piles up on the beaches after strong onshore winds, which ruins launching and footing and simultaneously restocks the bait supply. The autumn mullet run from Easter onward is the one seasonal certainty on this coast. Autumn and winter bring the calmest offshore-wind days at this end of the peninsula, which is exactly why neighbouring Stenhouse Bay fishes best in those months. The bloom that worked its way up the west coast in January 2026 has not spared this end of the state, and SARDI was still finding elevated pockets along Yorke as late as July 2026, so treat older catch reports with some caution.

The timber walkway is uneven and the deck carries posted restrictions that change what you can do on it, so read the signs rather than assume. Rotting seaweed banks are excellent for bait worms and terrible for footing, on the beach and at the ramp alike. The new boat ramp damaged at least six boats in its first fortnight after opening in April 2025 and the local sea rescue squadron refused to use it, so anyone launching alone should treat the pylons and the central walkway with real caution. The bay is open to southerly weather off Investigator Strait, and the beaches east toward Troubridge Point are surf and shark water after dark. The Chinamans Hat Sanctuary Zone lies a few kilometres off, so boat anglers need the zoning map even though the jetty and beaches are unaffected. Since 16 April 2026 any bivalve you collect yourself in South Australia is bait only, because of brevetoxin, and nothing found dead on the sand belongs in a bucket.

Mullet, tommy ruff, King George whiting, salmon, flathead and trevally, with mulloway off the beaches east of town at night. The jetty's famous squid fishing is closed, and so is garfish — Marion Bay sits in the Gulf St Vincent and Kangaroo Island zone, where both closures apply with no end date.

Visitors describe lighting on the deck for night walks and night fishing, but neither the council's jetties page nor the regional fishing guide mentions lights at Marion Bay, so take a lantern. Stenhouse Bay and Port Rickaby are documented as having none at all.

The zone line at the foot of Yorke Peninsula is the 35°S parallel. Marion Bay sits south of it in the Gulf St Vincent and Kangaroo Island zone, where garfish has been closed since 1 May 2026. Point Turton is north of it in Spencer Gulf, where garfish stays open at 23 cm and a bag of 30.

From Easter onward, along the beaches inside the bay. Seaweed worms dug from the decaying ribbon weed on the sand are the local gun bait, with mince or cockle as a substitute, fished on the lightest tackle you own over bread berley.

No. The jetty sits outside Dhilba Guuranda-Innes National Park, so entry fees only start once you drive west into the park itself. Check Parks SA for current park fees and booking before heading to Browns Beach or Stenhouse Bay.