Garfish
Jetty / ShoreGarfish — southern garfish in WA — are slender, surface-feeding fish that school in estuaries and sheltered bays around Perth and along the lower west coast. Caught on a simple float rig with tiny hooks and bread, they're a relaxing light-tackle target, excellent pan-fried, and prized live bait for tailor and bigger predators.
Overview
Garfish are one of Perth's most elegant and enjoyable light-tackle targets. These slender, surface-feeding fish school in estuaries and sheltered bays from October through April, and catching them on float rigs with tiny hooks is a relaxing, rewarding style of fishing. They're also excellent eating and make outstanding live bait for tailor and other predators.
Identification
Gardies, sea garfish, southern garfish
Slim, silver-blue fish with a bright silver band down the flank and a long, needle-like lower jaw — the upper jaw stays short, which is the whole trick. If both jaws are drawn out into a toothy beak, you have a longtom, not a gar. River garfish are smaller, shorter-beaked and stay in the upper estuaries; this is the southern sea garfish of the open bays and seagrass. The tail is forked with a longer lower lobe, and the beak tip is orange-red on a live fish, fading within minutes of landing. Everyone in Perth calls them gardies.
How to Catch
Bread dough, maggots, small pieces of prawn, dough mixed with pilchard oil
N/A — bait-only species. Target exclusively with small natural baits on float rigs.
Float rig with a tiny hook (size 10–12) set 30–60cm below a small bobby cork. Use the lightest line possible (2–4lb) and no sinker — the bait should drift naturally just below the surface.
Berley with bread to draw the school to the surface, then cast a float rig with bread dough or maggot into the berley trail. Garfish feed at or just below the surface, so set the float shallow. Watch for the float to dip and gently lift into the fish — no aggressive strike needed. Keep the berley going and you can catch them all day.
Best from October through April in the warmer months. Calm mornings and afternoons are ideal — wind makes float-fishing difficult. Rising tide in sheltered bays and estuaries concentrates the schools.
Up to 500g, commonly 100–200g
Year-round
Size & Growth
Most are 25–35 cm and 100–200 g. A good gardie is 40 cm-plus, and around half a kilo is the practical ceiling. They are fast-growing and short-lived — a few years, not decades — and schools tend to be a single year class, so you will catch twenty fish of the same length before the size steps up or down. That is worth knowing: if the school under your berley trail is small, moving fifty metres is more use than changing bait. A bucket of 30 cm gar is a normal, respectable session.
Diet & Habitat
Garfish graze rather than hunt — seagrass and algae, drifting plankton, small crustaceans and the odd tiny fish, all taken at or just under the surface. They school over seagrass meadows in sheltered bays and estuaries, usually in 1–5 m, and rise readily to a bread berley trail. A temperate southern species: in WA from around Kalbarri south and east along the south coast. Cockburn Sound, Mangles Bay, Safety Bay, Warnbro, the lower Swan around Dalkeith and Geographe Bay are all reliable, as are the Albany and Esperance harbours. Calm water matters more than tide.
WA Size & Bag Limits
| Minimum size | No minimum size |
|---|---|
| Bag limit | 30 |
| Counts toward | The 30 applies to each garfish species, but it also sits inside the statewide 'all other species of finfish' TOTAL mixed daily bag of 30 — shared with Australian herring, mullet, blue mackerel and the non-KGW whitings. Thirty fish is the ceiling across the whole category, not per species on top of it. |
No minimum size. Individual bag limit: 30 per garfish species — but garfish sit in DPIRD's 'all other species of finfish' category, whose TOTAL mixed-species daily bag is 30 per fisher, shared with Australian herring, mullet, blue mackerel and the whitings other than King George. Thirty fish is the day's ceiling across that whole category.
Eating Quality
Yes — garfish are one of Perth's best small eating fish: delicate, sweet white flesh with almost no oil, large scales that come off easily, and a bone structure that makes them simple to eat. Butterfly them by cutting down the back and pressing flat — the backbone lifts out in one piece — then crumb and shallow-fry, or leave them whole and pan-fry in butter. Either way it is a minute or two a side and no more; they overcook in seconds. Size makes little difference to the eating, though bigger fish are easier to prepare. They do not freeze well for the table, going soft and watery, but they freeze perfectly well as bait — which is what most of a big catch ends up as anyway.
Perth Tips
Mangles Bay, Safety Bay, and the Swan River near Dalkeith are reliable garfish spots. Use a fine-mesh berley bag filled with bread to create a steady trail. Garfish also make exceptional live bait for tailor — hook through the back on a single hook and cast into the wash at dusk.