Where and when to catch Golden Perch 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.
Callop, as most South Australians call golden perch, are the big native fish of the SA River Murray that you can actually take home. They hold on the snags and rock bars along the river from the border down to the Lower Lakes, and PIRSA has stocked them into four SA Water reservoirs for recreational fishing. The river fishes best through the hot months, when the water's warm and the cicadas are loud, and slows right down in winter.
Western Australian limits don't apply in South Australia.
Where to Catch Golden Perch in SA
Along the River Murray, look for timber, rock bars, steep banks and the deeper water around locks, backwaters and bends. In the stocked reservoirs, work drowned timber, weed edges and the old creek channels. The spots below list them, from Blanchetown to Murray Bridge, plus Myponga Reservoir.
Live shrimp and yabbies are the classics, with scrub worms, earthworms, bardi grubs and small yabby tails close behind. Fish them fresh and alive if you can.
Lures
Lipless crankbaits and vibes, spinnerbaits, deep-diving hardbodies trolled or cast along snags and banks, soft plastics hopped along the bottom, and metal blades. Bright colours and lures that rattle help in dirty water.
Rigs
A 2–3 kg spin or baitcast outfit with 8–12 lb braid and a 12–20 lb leader handles most golden perch. For bait, a running ball sinker straight onto the hook or a paternoster with a 1/0–2/0 hook, cast tight to timber; a small float works over shallow snags. Expect to lose rigs in the timber: that's where the fish are.
Technique
Find the structure first: fallen trees, rock bars, the edge of a drop-off or a deep outside bend. Cast baits right against it and let them sit. With lures, bump them through and over the timber, or troll deep-divers along a bank so they tap the bottom. Golden perch often mouth a bait gently before running, so give them a moment. Once hooked, they tend to bulldog for the nearest snag.
Best Time
The warmer half of the year is when they feed hard, with the best bites as water temperatures climb in spring and stay up through summer. A rising river is good; a sudden cold change is bad. Early morning, late afternoon and into the evening are the usual peaks, but in dirty water they'll bite through the day. Winter fishing is slow.
PIRSA sets different golden perch limits for the stocked reservoirs (Myponga, Warren, South Para and Bundaleer) than for the river. Check the PIRSA page for the water you're fishing.
Fishing a SA Water reservoir needs an SA Water permit as well as following PIRSA's rules; check SA Water's reservoir rules for opening hours and which areas are open.
Identification
Also known asCallop, yellowbelly, Murray perch
A deep, thick-bodied fish with a small head that slopes up steeply to a humped back, giving a concave forehead, a pointed snout and a large mouth with the lower jaw jutting out in bigger fish. Colour varies with the water: olive, bronze or brassy gold above fading to a creamy or golden-yellow belly, which is where 'yellowbelly' comes from. Juveniles are more silvery with grey mottling. The tail is rounded to square. Murray cod have a much bigger, wider head and mouth and green mottling; silver perch are silvery grey with smaller heads and a forked tail; redfin have stripes and a spiny, two-part dorsal fin.
Size & Growth
Most fish caught are 35–50 cm and under 2 kg. A 55 cm fish is a very good one, and the species can reach about 76 cm and 23 kg, though fish like that are rare. They're long lived (the oldest recorded was 26 years) and grow at very different rates depending on how good the water is; stocked impoundment fish often grow fat and fast.
Diet & Habitat
A fish of slow, warm, often murky water: lowland rivers, backwaters, billabongs, lakes and impoundments. It holds around snags, fallen timber, rock bars, steep clay banks and drop-offs, and in reservoirs along drowned timber and old creek channels. It eats yabbies, shrimp, small fish and insect larvae. Golden perch are great travellers and one of the most migratory freshwater fish in the country, moving long distances upstream with rising water, and they spawn in flooded backwaters after spring and summer rises.
Eating Quality
Good eating, with firm white flesh, though fish from muddy water can taste of it; a few days in clean water or skinning the fillets helps. Bleed and ice anything kept. Many anglers release the big breeding fish and keep a couple of mid-sized ones for the table.