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Bite Compass
Reef / Offshore

Pink Snapper

Chrysophrys auratus

Pink snapper is one of WA's premier demersal reef fish — sweet eating, hard fighting, and found over reef and structure from the West Coast through the Gascoyne. Mainly a boat species, but land-based pinks are caught from deep rock walls and channel edges around Dawesville Cut and the Moles. Not to be confused with bight redfish (also called red snapper).

Size
Up to 15kg, commonly 2–5kg
Peak season
May–Sep (boat-based closed in the West Coast bioregion until spring 2027; Cockburn and Warnbro sounds closed 1 Aug–31 Jan)
Minimum size (WA)
50 cm (Lancelin to Black Point); 41 cm (Lancelin to the Zuytdorp Cliffs); 45 cm outside the West Coast bioregion
Bag limit (WA)
2 (West Coast and other bioregions); 1 (Abrolhos Islands)

Overview

Pink snapper are one of WA's most sought-after fish, combining excellent fight with outstanding eating quality. While mainly a boat species, land-based snapper are caught from deep-water rock walls and channel edges — and hooking a big pink from the shore is a red-letter day in any angler's diary.

Identification

Also known as Snapper, pinkie, pinky (small fish), squire (eastern states), knobby (big old fish)

Pinkish-silver body scattered with small iridescent blue spots, a steep forehead and a strong, blunt-toothed mouth built for crushing. Old fish develop a pronounced hump on the forehead and a bulge on the snout — the 'knobby' look. Small ones are brighter pink with more obvious blue spotting. The common mix-up is with bight redfish, which is talked about and sold as 'red snapper' in WA but is a deep-water, big-eyed, uniformly red fish with no blue spots. Juvenile pinkies in the Swan and Cockburn Sound also get mistaken for bream, which are bronze-black and have no spots at all.

How to Catch

Best Baits

Whole squid, pilchards, octopus, mulies

Lures

Soft plastics (paddle-tail and jerk shad), metal jigs, vibes

Rigs

Paternoster rig with two 4/0–6/0 hooks and a bomb sinker, or a running sinker rig with a single large hook for bigger baits. Use 30–40lb fluorocarbon leader near structure.

Technique

Target deep-water structure — rock walls, channel edges, and areas where current flows past reef. Lower bait to the bottom and hold position, or cast soft plastics and work them slowly along the bottom near structure. Snapper feed close to the reef, so accuracy matters. When you get a bite, let the fish take the bait before setting the hook firmly.

Best Time

Best from May through September, when cooler water pushes fish closer to shore structure. Dawn and dusk on a moving tide near structure are prime, with some night activity too. Overcast days with moderate current flow are ideal. Many anglers rate the days after a storm, when dirty water stirs up bait.

Size & Growth

A typical Perth snapper is 2–5 kg and 50–70 cm. A good one is 7–8 kg, a genuine knobby of 10 kg-plus is the fish of a season, and the 15 kg headline figure is rare. They grow steadily for the first decade then slowly, and live well past 30 years, so a big-headed old fish is decades old and worth releasing. Land-based fish from the moles and the Dawesville Cut are usually 45–60 cm, right around the legal size, and the small pinkies you pick up in Cockburn Sound and the lower Swan are juveniles that shouldn't be in the bucket.

Diet & Habitat

Snapper crush crabs, prawns, squid, octopus, shellfish and small fish with heavy molar teeth — a fish built to eat hard things. They hold over reef, rubble, drop-offs and the edges of sandy channels, from 5 m out to well past 100 m, moving shallower in the cooler months and after storms stir the water up. In WA they run from the south coast right up through the Gascoyne to Shark Bay, which holds its own distinct inner-gulf stocks. Around Perth, Cockburn and Warnbro Sounds are important spawning grounds — hence the seasonal closure — and juveniles use the Sounds and the lower Swan as nursery water.

WA Size & Bag Limits

Minimum size 50 cm (Lancelin to Black Point); 41 cm (Lancelin to the Zuytdorp Cliffs); 45 cm outside the West Coast bioregion
Bag limit 2 (West Coast and other bioregions); 1 (Abrolhos Islands)
Counts toward Counts within the demersal scalefish mixed daily bag — 2 fish in the West Coast bioregion, 4 in the North, Gascoyne and South Coast. Spawning closures and the West Coast boat-based demersal closure also apply.

Pink snapper (Snapper, Chrysophrys auratus) is a demersal scalefish. Minimum legal size (West Coast bioregion): 500 mm between Lancelin and Black Point (east of Augusta); 410 mm between Lancelin and the Zuytdorp Cliffs (north of Kalbarri). Outside the West Coast bioregion: 450 mm. Individual species daily bag limit: West Coast bioregion 2, Abrolhos Islands 1, other bioregions 2. It is counted within the demersal scalefish mixed daily bag — and in the West Coast bioregion that TOTAL mixed demersal bag is 2 fish (not 4), within which you may take up to 2 pink snapper. (The 1-June-2026 reform set the mixed demersal bag at 4 fish only in the North, Gascoyne and South Coast bioregions, outside the West Coast bioregion.) The West Coast bioregion boat-based demersal scalefish closure runs until spring 2027 (land-based fishing exempt). Pink snapper spawning closures: Cockburn and Warnbro Sounds (west to 5 Fathom Bank) closed 1 August – 31 January inclusive; Shark Bay closures apply on differing dates.

Last checked . Limits change — confirm with DPIRD before you fish.

Eating Quality

Yes — pink snapper is one of the best table fish in WA: sweet, moist white flesh that holds together beautifully and takes almost any treatment. Bleed and ice straight away to keep the flesh firm. Smaller fish around 1–3 kg are the pick for cooking whole; bigger ones give thick fillets and a head worth keeping. Pan-fry fillets skin-on for a crisp finish, bake whole over fennel and lemon, or steam Cantonese-style with ginger and shallots — the classic treatment, and for good reason. The head, wings and cheeks make the best stock and fish curry you'll get out of any WA species, so don't bin the frame. It freezes well for a couple of months skinned, portioned and vac-sealed, though a snapper eaten the day it's caught is a different thing entirely.

Where to Catch Pink Snapper

Albany (Emu Point / King George Sound / Salmon Holes) Alcoa Jetty (Kwinana) Augusta (Hardy Inlet / Flinders Bay) Blackwall Reach (Swan River) Bunbury Koombana Bay (Inner Harbour / The Plug / Casuarina Boat Harbour) Bundegi (Boat Ramp / Beach / Bundegi Reef) Busselton Jetty Canning Bridge (Applecross/Mount Pleasant) Cape Le Grand (Lucky Bay / Hellfire Bay / Thistle Cove) Cape Naturaliste (Dunsborough / Bunker Bay) Carnarvon (Town Beach / Babbage Island / Quobba) Cervantes (Jetty / Hangover Bay / Thirsty Point) Challenger Beach (Naval Base) Coral Bay (South Ningaloo) Dawesville Cut Denham (Shark Bay) Dirk Hartog Island (Wirruwana — Outer Shark Bay) Dongara / Port Denison (Harbour / Granny's Beach / South Beach / Irwin River Mouth) Exmouth (North Ningaloo / North West Cape) Floreat Beach (Floreat Drain) Geraldton (Fisherman's Wharf / Separation Point) Gnaraloo Bay / Station Greenough River Mouth (Cape Burney) Hamelin Bay Hangover Bay (Nambung National Park) Horrocks Beach Houtman Abrolhos Islands (Wallabi / Easter / Pelsaert Groups) Jurien Bay (Jetty & Marina Walls) Kalbarri (Murchison River Mouth / Wittecarra / Coastal Cliffs) Lancelin (Jetty & Back Beach) Mangles Bay (Rockingham) Murchison River (Kalbarri) North Mole (Fremantle) Pelican Point (Crawley, Swan River) Port Gregory (Harbour / Foreshore Jetty / North & South Beaches) Quobba (Quobba Station / Blowholes / Camp Rock) Rottnest Island (Shore Fishing) South Mole (Fremantle) Steep Point (Edel Land — Mainland's Westernmost Point) Useless Loop / Tamala (Outer Shark Bay) Yallingup (Smiths Beach / Sugarloaf Rock)

Guides Featuring Pink Snapper

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