Queenfish
Inshore / EstuaryFast inshore predator of the tropical north, hunting bait schools across flats, channels and creek mouths from Ningaloo to the Kimberley. One of WA's best lure targets — they smash surface poppers and small stickbaits with abandon, jump repeatedly when hooked, and most are released. Ordinary on the table.
Overview
Queenfish are the inshore lure angler's gift in northern WA — aggressive, abundant, and willing to chase a popper across a sand flat. They school heavily around creek mouths, harbour entrances and shallow reef edges from Exmouth north through the Pilbara and into the Kimberley. Sight-casting to schools busting bait at change of light is one of the better fishing experiences available in WA. Most anglers fish them as sport-and-release because the flesh is thin, soft and not especially good eating, though smaller fish are passable when iced down quickly.
Identification
Queenie, leatherskin, talang queenfish
Extraordinarily thin through the body — a queenie viewed head-on is a silver ribbon — with a row of five to eight dark oval blotches along the lateral line, a large protrusible mouth that reaches well past the eye, and semi-detached rays at the rear of the dorsal and anal fins. Trevally are far deeper-bodied and carry hard scutes along the tail. Giant herring are also silver and also jump, but have no flank blotches and a much smaller mouth. Needleskin queenfish are smaller with more numerous spots, and are specifically excluded from the queenfish bag group.
How to Catch
Live mullet, hardyheads, prawn, strip baits — though most are caught on lures
Halco Roosta poppers, small stickbaits, chrome slugs, soft plastics on 1/4–3/8oz jigheads, surface walkers
Single-hook lure setups on 30–40lb leader, with a short heavy mono bite trace (queenfish have rough mouths and small teeth). For bait, a running sinker or unweighted live-bait rig on a 5/0 circle hook. Wire trace not needed unless mackerel are mixed in.
Sight-cast to schools busting bait at the surface — the strike is immediate. Walk-the-dog stickbaits and popped poppers both work; vary retrieve speed until they commit. When fish are deeper, soft plastics worked through the water column produce well. They follow lures repeatedly — keep the retrieve going right to the rod tip.
Active year-round in the tropical north, with the cooler dry season (April–October) the most fishable. Run-in tides over the flats and around creek mouths are prime. Early morning and the hour before dark consistently outproduce midday.
Up to 12kg, commonly 2–5kg
Year-round (Pilbara/Kimberley)
Size & Growth
Most queenfish are 50–90 cm and 2–5 kg, which is a very good fish on light gear given how hard they jump. A metre-plus queenie of 8–10 kg is a standout, and around 12 kg is the practical maximum. They grow quickly and school by size, so a school busting bait on a flat will produce a run of similar fish. Do not read length as weight — a metre-long queenfish is a thin fish and weighs far less than a metre-long trevally, which is exactly why they fight the way they do and eat the way they do.
Diet & Habitat
Queenfish hunt hardyheads, small mullet, prawns and any baitfish they can herd against shallow ground. They work flats, creek mouths, harbour entrances, channel edges and shallow reef in anything from half a metre to ten metres, usually in schools, and they push bait right up onto the sand at change of light. This is a tropical species — Exmouth north through the Pilbara and the Kimberley, with occasional fish in Shark Bay and none of consequence around Perth. Beadon Creek at Onslow, Dampier harbour, the Karratha back creeks and the Broome causeway are the standard ground.
WA Size & Bag Limits
| Minimum size | No minimum size |
|---|---|
| Bag limit | 8 |
| Counts toward | Counts within the statewide nearshore/estuarine finfish mixed daily limit of 16. |
Bag limit: 8 per individual species within the trevally and queenfish group (Family Carangidae). This limit applies to each species separately, and queenfish also count toward the statewide nearshore/estuarine finfish TOTAL mixed-species daily bag limit of 16. No minimum legal size applies to queenfish (the 250 mm size in this group applies only to silver trevally). Needleskin queenfish and yellowtail scad are excluded from this group.
Eating Quality
Mediocre on the table, and that is the settled view rather than a harsh one. The flesh is thin, soft and slightly oily, and it turns to mush if the fish sits around; big queenfish are noticeably worse than small ones. If you are keeping one, take a fish under about 3 kg, bleed it and ice it immediately, then skin the fillets and trim the dark flesh hard. Handled that way it is passable crumbed, and genuinely decent as sashimi if it is cut within an hour or two of capture — which is the best use for it. Do not freeze it. Most anglers release queenfish and fill the esky with trevally or emperor instead, and the leftovers make excellent strip bait.
Perth Tips
Onslow's Beadon Creek, Dampier harbour, Karratha back creeks and the Broome causeway produce queenfish on most outgoing tides. Crush the barbs on lures — most are released, and unhooking goes faster. Mind the rough scutes near the tail when handling.