Luderick
Where and when to catch Luderick in New South Wales: the NSW season, the spots in our guide that hold them, and where to find NSW's current size and bag limits.
- Size
- Up to 70cm, commonly 30–40cm
- NSW season
- Year-round (best Apr–Sep)
- NSW spots
- 79
Overview
Luderick, or blackfish to most of NSW, are the fish of the long rod, the pencil float and the bag of green weed, and the breakwalls of the state have whole generations of anglers who fish for nothing else. They school along walls, channels, wharves and ocean rocks right along the coast, and feed by day, so this is one fishery where nobody has to set an alarm for 4 am. They're caught all year, but the cooler months are the main season, when schools gather on the entrance walls and ocean ledges and the weed-gatherers are out at low tide scraping drains.
NSW Size & Bag Limits
NSW limits for Luderick are set by NSW DPIRD and change from time to time, so we link them rather than copy them. Check NSW DPIRD's limits and NSW DPIRD: luderick before you fish.
Western Australian limits don't apply in New South Wales.
Where to Catch Luderick in NSW
Luderick hold wherever weed and moving water meet: breakwalls and entrance channels, harbour wharves and baths, bridge pylons and ocean rock ledges. The spots below list them.
Sydney Harbour
Sydney East & Botany
Sydney Northern Beaches
Sutherland & Port Hacking
Central Coast
Newcastle & Lake Macquarie
Port Stephens & Hunter
Illawarra
How to Catch
Best Baits
Green weed (the fine filamentous ribbon weed from drains and rock pools) is the classic and best bait. Cabbage (sea lettuce) works off the ocean rocks, especially in rough water. Live nippers (yabbies), squirt worms and peeled prawn take the odd fish, mainly in estuaries.
Lures
Not a lure fish. A few are taken on small weed flies, but almost all luderick fall to weed under a float.
Rigs
A long, soft rod (3.6 m or more) with a free-running centrepin or small threadline reel, 6–8 lb main line and a 4–6 lb leader. A slim pencil or stemmed float is set to the depth of the fish, with split shot spaced down the line so it sits with just the tip showing. The hook is small: a size 8–12 fine-gauge short-shank. Off the open rocks, go to a heavier float, a bigger hook and 8–10 lb line, and fish cabbage.
Technique
Weed-fishing is its own craft. Wind a small tuft of green weed around and up the hook so it sits like a strand drifting in the current, set the float so the bait rides just above the bottom or the weed line, then let the current carry it along the wall or ledge. A take is the float easing under. Strike on a slow, firm lift as it disappears, not on the first nibble. Berley of chopped weed mixed with sand, thrown up-current, gathers a school. Fish the moving water along breakwalls and channels, and work the white water close to the ledge off the ocean rocks. Once one is hooked, keep the rod high and steer it away from the rocks; that big tail makes them dogged fighters for their size.
Best Time
A daylight fish. Float fishing through the middle of the day is normal, and the bite rarely carries into the dark. Moving water along a wall or channel is generally better than slack water. Luderick are caught all year, and most of the year's fish come in the cooler months, when schools gather on breakwalls, channels and ocean rocks.
Identification
Also known as Blackfish, darkie, black
An oval, compressed fish with a small head, a small mouth and a big forked tail. The body is dark greenish-grey to brown above, fading to silvery-grey below, with about 11 or 12 narrow dark vertical bars down the sides that taper towards the belly. Estuary fish are usually darker and browner; ocean fish are bluer and greyer. The teeth are rows of tiny flattened three-pointed blades, built for cropping weed, not for crunching shells. Rock blackfish (drummer) are plain dark blue-grey to black with no bars and a black edge to the gill cover. Zebra fish (Girella zebra) have fewer, broader and bolder bars. Silver drummer (Kyphosus) are plain silvery-grey with no bars.
Size & Growth
Most fish caught are 28–38 cm and under a kilo. A 40 cm fish is a good one, a 2 kg fish is a very good one, and the maximum is around 70 cm and 4 kg, though that is museum talk rather than wharf talk. Luderick are slow-growing and long-lived. Adults gather in large schools and run from rivers, estuaries and coastal lakes to the estuary mouths and surf zone to spawn, and the young settle in seagrass beds before moving out to deeper estuary water and coastal reefs as they grow.
Diet & Habitat
Mostly a herbivore: luderick graze seagrass, green filamentous weed, sea lettuce and the film of algae and detritus on rocks and piles, picking up the odd small shellfish, shrimp or worm along the way. They live in shallow coastal and estuarine water, from the upper tidal reaches of rivers out to breakwalls and exposed rock platforms, rarely deeper than about 20 m. Schools hold around rock walls, jetties, bridge pylons, weed beds and rocky outcrops, and individual fish are strongly attached to their patch of reef. They feed by day and shelter at night.
Eating Quality
Divisive. Bled, gutted and skinned straight away, an ocean or entrance fish is firm, white and good, especially smoked or crumbed. Leave it in a bucket for the afternoon, or keep one from a weedy back lagoon, and it will taste of the weed and the gut. Bleed every fish you keep, take the gut out early, and skin the fillets, removing the dark lateral line. Small fish are best released; they're a lot more fun to catch than to eat.
Guides Featuring Luderick
Luderick elsewhere: Western Australia