Snook
Shore / JettySnook (sea pike) are a fast, sharp-toothed predator caught year-round around Perth jetties, groynes and rock walls. A common by-catch when you're chasing tailor or herring on metals, and good eating when bled and iced. WA's snook is the temperate Sphyraena novaehollandiae — not the tropical great barracuda.
Overview
WA's snook (Sphyraena novaehollandiae) — also called short-finned sea pike — is one of Perth's most common lure by-catch species. Schools hold around jetty pylons, groynes, reef edges and rock walls, ambushing baitfish with short, explosive strikes. Most anglers don't set out for snook; they turn up while casting metals for tailor or herring and pull hard on light gear. Don't confuse them with the tropical great barracuda (a separate, far bigger fish) or the longfin pike — the snook is the toothy silver sea pike you'll actually catch off a metro jetty.
Identification
Sea pike, short-finned sea pike, pike
Long, slender and silver, with a pointed head, a jutting lower jaw full of small needle teeth, two widely separated dorsal fins and faint dusky bars over the back. The confusions are all local: longfin pike have a much bigger eye, soft yellowish fins, a long-based second dorsal and far smaller teeth; striped barracuda carry yellow flank stripes and a yellowish tail; and the tropical great barracuda — a different and far larger fish — is a northern species you will not meet off a metro jetty. Anglers use 'snook', 'sea pike' and 'pike' interchangeably, which is where most of the confusion starts.
How to Catch
Pilchards, prawns, small fish fillets, squid strips
Chrome slugs, small metals, minnow lures, soft plastics with a fast retrieve
Light spinning setup with 6–10lb line and a short wire or heavy mono leader — snook have sharp teeth that will cut through light leader. A simple running sinker rig works for bait fishing.
Cast metals or small lures around jetty pylons, groynes, and rock walls with a fast retrieve. Snook like speed — a fast, erratic retrieve triggers their ambush instinct. They often hit on the drop or pause, so stay alert. When bait fishing, use a lightly weighted rig and let the bait drift near structure.
Active throughout the day but most aggressive in the morning and late afternoon. Warmer months tend to produce more fish. Incoming tide pushing bait close to structure is ideal.
Up to 5kg, commonly 1–2kg
Year-round
Size & Growth
Most metro jetty snook are 40–60 cm and a few hundred grams up to a kilo. A good one is 70 cm-plus and pushes 2 kg; the 5 kg headline fish are rare and mostly come from the south coast and Geographe Bay rather than Perth. They grow quickly and do not live long by reef-fish standards, and schools tend to be a single size grade — if the first three are undersized, the rest usually will be too. Worth carrying a measure: 30 cm arrives sooner than it looks on a long, thin fish.
Diet & Habitat
Snook are pure ambush predators — hardyheads, whitebait, small herring, garfish and squid, taken with a short, fast rush. They hold along the edges where sand meets weed, around jetty pylons, groynes, rock walls and reef margins, usually in 1–10 m and often within a cast of the shore. A temperate southern species: in WA they run from around Kalbarri south and east along the south coast. Cockburn Sound, Owen Anchorage, Warnbro Sound, the Fremantle harbour walls and Geographe Bay all hold them year-round, with the shallow seagrass margins off Rockingham and Safety Bay as reliable as anywhere.
WA Size & Bag Limits
| Minimum size | 30 cm (striped barracuda, in the same group, has no minimum) |
|---|---|
| Bag limit | 8 |
| Counts toward | Counts within the statewide nearshore/estuarine finfish mixed daily limit of 16. |
Minimum size: 300 mm. Individual daily bag limit: 8, counted within the statewide nearshore/estuarine finfish total mixed bag of 16 per fisher (so eight snook leaves room for eight other nearshore fish). Striped barracuda, the close cousin snook are grouped with, has no minimum size.
Eating Quality
Yes — snook are good eating, despite the 'just by-catch' reputation. Bleed and ice them the moment they are landed: the flesh is soft and low in oil and it goes to mush faster than almost anything else you will pull off a jetty. Fillet and skin them while they are still cold. The meat is white, mild and fine-grained, and suits crumbing and shallow-frying, or cutting the bigger fish into cutlets and baking them. Small snook are barely worth filleting — scale, gut and pan-fry whole. Do not bother freezing; flesh that was already delicate turns cottony. Eat them the day you catch them and they are genuinely worth the trip; leave them in a warm bucket and you will understand the reputation.
Perth Tips
You'll pick snook up regularly while lure fishing almost any Perth jetty or groyne — Ammo Jetty, Woodman Point and the Fremantle harbour walls are reliable. Watch the teeth when unhooking; long-nose pliers save fingers. They're often undersized, so carry a measure — 300 mm comes around faster than you'd think. Run a short wire or heavy mono leader to stop the bite-offs snook are famous for.