Where and when to catch Gummy 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.
Gummy sharks are the night shift on South Australia's beaches and jetties: a slender, white-spotted, toothless-looking shark that cruises the gutters and channels after dark looking for crabs and octopus. They're the shark most SA land-based anglers actually want to catch, because they're good-natured on the end of a line and excellent on the plate. Expect long, slow sessions with a rod in a holder and a thermos, punctuated by a run that makes the whole thing worthwhile.
Western Australian limits don't apply in South Australia.
Where to Catch Gummy Shark in SA
Gummies come in over sand close to deeper water after dark: surf gutters on the Fleurieu and in the South East, the deep end of long jetties, and channels with a decent run of tide. The spots below list them, from Henley Beach to the Coorong.
Fresh, oily and smelly works best: fillets or heads of salmon, tommy ruff (herring), mullet or trevally, whole small fish, squid and octopus, and fresh crab. Fresh beats frozen by a long way, and changing a washed-out bait every 20–30 minutes keeps the scent trail going.
Lures
Not a lure fish. A gummy will very occasionally grab a soft plastic dragged slowly along the bottom, but it's bait or nothing.
Rigs
A running sinker or paternoster rig with a sinker just heavy enough to hold the bottom, a 40–60 lb mono leader, and a 5/0–8/0 circle hook. Circle hooks set themselves in the corner of the mouth and make release much easier. Gummies have no cutting teeth, so heavy mono does the job; wire is for where whalers are about, and some waters restrict trace and hook sizes, so check local gear rules. A 3–4 m surf rod with a 6–10 kg rating handles beach fish.
Technique
Cast to the deeper water of a gutter, channel or drop-off, or straight down off the deep end of a jetty, set the rod in a holder with the reel on light drag or in free spool, and wait. Let the fish run and load the rod; with a circle hook, don't strike, just wind into the weight. Gummies fight with long, heavy runs along the bottom rather than jumping. Bring the fish into the shallows or a net rather than dragging it up a jetty by the line. If you're releasing it, unhook it in the water or cut the leader close to the hook.
Best Time
After dark, especially the first few hours of night, and best of all on a tide change or a run of tide in a channel. Dirty water after a blow can bring them on during the day. Warmer months generally produce more beach and jetty gummies, but they're caught year-round.
PIRSA sets gummy shark limits by fishing zone and counts them in a combined limit with several other sharks and rays. New shark and ray rules came in on 16 December 2024, so older advice may be out of date. Check the PIRSA pages below before you keep one.
Between Outer Harbor and Lady Bay south of Normanville, within 500 m of shore, PIRSA restricts wire traces, heavy mono traces, big hooks and ganged hooks from 5 am to 9 pm. A separate statewide rule bars using a heavy wire trace together with very large hooks. The PIRSA shark page has the exact gear sizes.
PIRSA asks that sharks 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.
Identification
Also known asGummy, flake
Long, slender and grey to grey-brown above with small white spots scattered along the back and sides, and white underneath. The second dorsal fin is nearly as big as the first. Open the mouth (carefully, but there's no need to fear it) and you'll find rows of small, flat, pavement-like teeth for crushing crabs and octopus, not the blades of a whaler. That's where the name comes from. School shark is the main look-alike: it has sharp, pointed teeth, a much smaller second dorsal fin, a longer pointed snout, and no white spots. Whalers are bulkier, bronze or grey, and very toothy.
Size & Growth
Most shore-caught gummies are 70–120 cm. Pups are born at about 35 cm, females reach maturity at about 5 years and 1.1 m, and the species grows to about 1.8–1.9 m, with females the bigger sex, and they live to about 16 years. A gummy over 15 kg from the shore is a serious fish. They're live-bearers, with litters averaging about 14 pups after a pregnancy of around a year, which is why sensible anglers keep only what they'll eat.
Diet & Habitat
Gummies hunt along the bottom over sand, mud, seagrass edges and low reef, mostly in water shallower than about 80 m but down to 350 m or more. They eat octopus, crabs and other crustaceans, squid, worms and some small fish, finding prey by smell and electrical sense rather than sight. At night they move into surprisingly shallow water: surf gutters, channels and the deeper water off long jetties.
Eating Quality
Excellent, and boneless: the white, mild, flaky flesh is the flake of fish-and-chip shops. Like all sharks it must be bled and gutted promptly and iced, because sharks carry urea in their flesh that turns to ammonia if left warm. Fillet off the cartilage, skin it and soak in milk or brine if you're worried. Battered, crumbed, grilled or curried, it's hard to beat.