Where and when to catch Fiddler Ray (Banjo Shark) in South Australia: the SA season, the spots in our guide that hold them, and where to find SA's current size and bag limits.
Southern fiddler rays live in both gulfs and around Kangaroo Island in numbers, and on the Adelaide jetties they're the slow, patterned shape that takes the bait on the bottom while everyone else is berleying for tommies. The black-and-white 'magpie' fiddler of Gulf St Vincent and Kangaroo Island is the same species in a different outfit. They're bycatch for nearly everyone and a target for almost no one, which suits PIRSA's rules: the big fish must go back, and a kept fiddler counts against the day's shark allowance.
Nobody needs a special bait. Squid, pilchard, prawn, pipi, crab and fish strips fished on the bottom for whiting, flathead or gummy sharks all get eaten, which is how most fiddler rays are caught.
Lures
Not a lure fish. A bait sitting on the sand is what finds them.
Rigs
No dedicated rig: whatever is on the bottom for whiting, flathead or gummy sharks is what they take. Fiddlers crush rather than cut, so they don't bite through mono, and a circle hook usually lodges in the corner of the mouth, which makes the release quick.
Technique
A hooked fiddler ray is a heavy, slow weight that hugs the bottom rather than a runner. Keep steady pressure and bring it into the shallows or a landing net rather than hauling it up a pier by the line. If it's going back, unhook it in the water where you can, keep fingers clear of the thorns along the back and shoulders, and support the body rather than lifting it by the tail.
Best Time
Caught by day and after dark, year-round. Divers see them over the sand and around pier pylons in daylight, anglers meet them at night on gummy shark baits, and a tracking study of the east-coast species found it busiest by day on a reef. With signs pointing both ways, the bite times lean neither way and are a soft guide.
PIRSA has its own southern fiddler ray profile, with a maximum size limit and bag and boat limits that change by fishing zone. The biggest fiddlers, which include the breeding females, have to go back, so measure before you keep one.
Fiddlers share one combined daily limit with gummy and Port Jackson sharks, eagle and shovelnose rays, wobbegongs and most other sharks and rays, and the Gulf St Vincent and Kangaroo Island zone has had lower limits since November 2025, so check that zone's current limit before you keep one. New shark and ray rules came in on 16 December 2024, so older advice may be out of date.
Because fiddlers carry a size limit, they can't be filleted at sea. PIRSA asks that sharks and rays you're not keeping are released in the water without landing them where possible, with the line cut close to the hook if it's swallowed. Fiddlers have no venomous barb, but never lift any ray by the tail.
Identification
Also known asFiddler, banjo shark, banjo, southern fiddler ray, magpie fiddler ray (black-and-white colour morph)
A flattened, almost oval disc with a short, broadly rounded snout, then a thick, shark-like tail carrying two dorsal fins of similar size and a proper tail fin. There is no whip and no stinging barb. The back is yellowish to brown with broad, dark-edged grey or lilac bands radiating from the eyes and across the disc, and rows of thorns run down the middle of the back and over the shoulders. Two species share the name: the southern fiddler ray has three short parallel stripes behind the eyes, while the eastern fiddler ray has a dark bar between the eyes and a triangle or diamond marking behind them. Some southern fiddlers are mottled black and white; they were once described as a separate magpie fiddler ray until genetics showed they're the same fish. Shovelnose rays are the usual mix-up and belong to a different genus: their front end is wedge-shaped with a long, pointed snout, and they lack the fiddler's banding. Stingrays and stingarees carry a venomous barb on the tail.
Size & Growth
Southern fiddler rays reach about 1.46 m and 6–7 kg, eastern fiddler rays about 1.2 m and rarely more than 1.1 m, and females are the bigger sex. In the southern species males mature at about 68–70 cm and seven years, females at about 89–90 cm and nine years, and they live to about 15. Females carry two to five pups for about a year, with most of the growth packed into the last few months, and give birth in autumn to pups of 21–25 cm. Little is known of the eastern species' biology beyond its size and litters of two or three. Late maturity and small litters are one reason most are put back.
Diet & Habitat
Fiddler rays live on sand flats and in seagrass beds, often next to rocky reef, from the shallows out across the continental shelf, and occasionally move into estuaries. Divers see them around jetties and wharves. They eat crabs, shrimps, worms, molluscs and small fish, crushing shells with rows of small, blunt teeth, and the young live on tiny crustaceans such as amphipods and mysid shrimps. They scavenge too, pushing into fish traps and taking baits left on the bottom for other fish.
Eating Quality
Edible, with meat often compared to gummy shark, but most anglers let them go because a fiddler gives little meat for the work. As with other guitarfish, the part worth eating is the thick tail, skinned and taken off the cartilage. Bleed and ice it straight away, as with any shark or ray, or the flesh picks up an ammonia smell. Big females are the breeding stock, so they're the ones to put back.