Point Turton Jetty

Point Turton is the night jetty of the peninsula's south-west corner. The deck is short by Yorke standards: a 126 metre main run with a 42 metre arm on the map, against a visitor listing of 100 metres, so nobody is walking far whichever number is right. It sits on Hardwicke Bay over sand and inshore ribbon weed, and it fishes hardest after sunset. It was built in 1876 to ship out barley and quarried stone, the quarrying stopped in 1917, and the old flux quarry is now the caravan park looking straight down at the water. It is still a working structure: local salmon and prawn catches are unloaded off the same deck the rod-and-line crowd is standing on. The reputation is big tommy ruff at night, with snook, garfish and whiting alongside them, and squid whenever the closure lifts. Garfish are legal here, because the 35°S zone line at the foot of the peninsula puts Point Turton on the Spencer Gulf side of it. Stingrays and eagle rays cruise the shallows under the deck and are the thing most visitors photograph instead of a fish.

Float fishing with gents is the local prescription and it covers most of what swims past — tommies and gar on a pencil float, fished into a steady berley trail. The jetty is very consistent for big tommies at night, so the session that matters starts at dusk. Keep a couple of small lures in the box for snook, which are about most of the year and best through the warmer months. The official guide calls the whiting fishing very consistent all year, though it says that about the boat grounds reached from the ramp rather than the deck, so a longer cast onto the weed edges with a running sinker is still worth a rod. The flats east of the boat harbour are the second act and a different game entirely: flathead by day, and flounder speared under a spotlight on a dead-calm, moonless night. All three of the local night specialties want the same weather, which is why people here watch the moon phase harder than the tide. Small yellowtail kingfish turn up around the jetty in summer and are famously difficult to catch, so treat one as a bonus rather than a plan. Calamari is closed in both gulfs and the ban reaches targeting, so the jig rod stays unusable until it lifts.

Tommy ruff are the headline and the reason for the after-dark session, with a bag of 40 and no minimum size. Garfish are open on this side at 23 cm and a bag of 30 — Point Turton sits in the Spencer Gulf zone, north of the 35°S line that puts Marion Bay and Innes National Park under the tighter Gulf St Vincent rules. King George whiting are 32 cm with a Spencer Gulf bag of 10, snook are 45 cm with a bag of 20, and flathead are 30 cm with a bag of 10. Mullet are 21 cm with a bag of 60, and flounder off the flats have no minimum size and a bag of 20. A yellowtail kingfish has to be 60 cm, with a bag of one, which is academic for most of the fish seen here. Southern calamari has been closed to targeting, take and possession across both gulf zones since 1 May 2026 with no end date published, and snapper is closed until at least 30 June 2027. There is no King George whiting spawning closure in force anywhere in the state today, and this jetty sits outside the mapped polygon by about 660 metres — the closure's nearest corner is that far to the north-west, not due west, and it next applies from 1 March to 30 June 2027.

Fish the dark. Everything published about this jetty points at warm summer evenings, and the caravan park is close enough that a late finish costs nothing but a short walk. Take a lantern or a good headlamp, because no source documents lighting on the deck and the reputation is built on night sessions. Stop at the last third of the jetty and think about who is with you, because visitors report the hand-rails do not run the whole way out. The fish-cleaning bench beside the ramp carpark is in genuine demand, so join the queue rather than filleting on the deck. For flounder, wait for a night with no moon and no wind, and remember that spearfishing is banned within 100 metres of any jetty in South Australia, which puts the flats east of the boat harbour in bounds and the jetty itself out of it.

The jetty is free and sits beside a precinct that is unusually well organised for a town of about 250 people. There is a sealed carpark plus a large vehicle-and-trailer park at the ramp, a dual-lane all-tide boat ramp with a boarding pontoon, and a fish-cleaning facility next to the ramp carpark. A netted swimming pontoon, a designated swimming area and a barbecue area round out the foreshore, which makes this an easy family stop in daylight. Point Turton Caravan Park sits in the disused flux quarry directly overlooking the jetty and ramp, with a general store in town and Warooka a short drive inland. It is about 230 km from Adelaide, so this is a weekend rather than a spur-of-the-moment trip. Hand-rails cover most but not all of the deck, the planking is uneven, and no accessibility statement has been published — assume a wheelchair will struggle.

Hardwicke Bay opens to the north-west, so the jetty is sheltered in a southerly and gets knocked about in a north-wester. Spencer Gulf tides are semi-diurnal with a fortnightly dodge that stalls the water, but the real limiting factor here is the weather rather than the tide height: the whole night programme of big tommies, gar dabbing and flounder spearing wants a dead-calm, clear, moonless evening. Warm summer evenings are the headline season and draw most of the visiting anglers. Whiting are described as consistent right through the year, though that line is about the boat grounds north and west of the ramp rather than the deck itself. The algal bloom reached Point Turton in late January 2026, and PIRSA's situation update of 28 July 2026 still recorded elevated levels along the Hardwicke Bay coast, so recent seasons here have not been normal ones and the catch reports should be read with that in mind.

Reviewers report no safety railing on the final third of the jetty, on a report dating from December 2019, which is worth checking yourself before letting kids run ahead in the dark. The timber planking is uneven and the structure is old — one visitor in 2022 called it overdue for maintenance, another the same year called it solid, and both were probably right about different sections. No lighting is documented, so anyone fishing the night bite is responsible for their own light. The bay is sheltered in a southerly but rough in a north-westerly, and there is nowhere to hide on the deck. Flounder spearing means wading dark flats in cold water over soft ground, with rays underfoot, so go in company. Brevetoxin has made every self-collected bivalve in South Australia bait-only since 16 April 2026, and nothing found dead on the beach should be eaten.

Big tommy ruff after dark are the drawcard, with snook, garfish, King George whiting, flathead and mullet through the year and the odd small kingfish in summer. Garfish are open here because Point Turton is in the Spencer Gulf zone. Calamari is closed across both gulfs, and snapper stays closed until at least 30 June 2027.

No source documents any, and the jetty's whole reputation is built on night fishing, so take a lantern and a headlamp. The same goes for the walk back along the last third of the deck, which visitors report has no safety railing.

No, but only by about 660 metres — the closure's nearest corner sits that far to the north-west of the deck rather than due west. No whiting spawning closure is in force anywhere in South Australia today, and the next one runs 1 March to 30 June 2027 over those mapped waters only.

Not at the moment. Southern calamari has been closed to targeting, take and possession in Spencer Gulf and Gulf St Vincent since 1 May 2026, with no end date published. The closure covers targeting, so even working a jig is an offence.

Yes — a dual-lane all-tide ramp with a boarding pontoon beside the jetty, with a large vehicle-and-trailer park and a fish-cleaning facility at the ramp carpark.