Tailor are Perth's most popular surf-fishing target — aggressive schooling predators that hunt baitfish in packs along beaches and rock walls. Best at dawn and dusk on metal slugs or whole pilchards. The Perth beach run is best Dec–May.
Overview
Tailor are Perth's quintessential surf fishing target — aggressive, hard-fighting, and predictable in their annual run. Adult schools leave the estuaries to work the beaches through spring and summer — what DPIRD calls the 'summer run' — pushing baitfish into the shallows along beaches and rock walls, with the Perth beaches best from about December to May. They're accessible to anyone who can cast a lure or bait rig into the wash, and they're the fish that gets most Perth anglers hooked on fishing.
Identification
Chopper (small fish), greenback (big ones), bluefish
Blue-green across the back fading to silver flanks, a deeply forked tail and a large mouth packed with triangular cutting teeth — the teeth alone separate tailor from almost anything else in a Perth wash. The usual mix-up is with Australian salmon, which turn up in the same white water: salmon have tiny teeth, a longer more pointed head and rows of dark gold-brown spots along the upper flanks. Snook are also toothy but are long, thin sea pike rather than a deep-bodied fish. Size-class names: small ones are 'choppers', big ones are 'greenbacks'.
How to Catch
Whole pilchards, garfish, mulies (on ganged hooks)
Halco Twisty, Halco Raider, chrome slugs, metal slices
Ganged hook rig with two or three 4/0 hooks for whole pilchards, or a single-hook rig for lure casting. Use a heavy mono leader of 40lb or more — tailor have razor-sharp teeth, but wire trace is illegal within 800 m of shore from Tim's Thicket to Two Rocks, in the Swan-Canning estuary, and around the Busselton and Esperance jetties.
Cast metals or whole pilchards into the white water along beaches and rock platforms at dawn and dusk. Work metals with a fast retrieve and occasional pause. When you find the school, cast quickly — the bite window can be short. Watch for baitfish spraying out of the water as a sign tailor are feeding.
Dawn and dusk are prime — DPIRD notes the schools tend to rest in deeper water away from the shore by day and come in close to feed at first and last light. Many anglers also like a rising tide pushing bait against the shore. Overcast days with moderate swell extend the bite window.
Up to 10kg, commonly 1–3kg
Oct–Jun
Size & Growth
Most Perth beach tailor run 30–45 cm and under a kilo — the choppers that make up the bulk of the autumn run. A good land-based fish is 50–60 cm and 1.5–2 kg, and anything over 3 kg is a genuine greenback worth a photo. The 10 kg headline size exists but not on a metro beach; from the shore a 4 kg tailor is a big one. They grow quickly in the first few years and live around a decade. Expect to measure and release a lot of undersize fish during the run.
Diet & Habitat
Pure predators — whitebait, hardyheads, mullet, small herring, squid, anything that schools. They hunt in packs through the wash and along drop-offs, working bait against a beach, groyne or rock wall rather than sitting on structure, usually in 1–3 m of broken water. Gutters, reef edges and the Fremantle moles are the classic holding ground. In WA they run from about Exmouth down past the metro beaches to Augusta, and in much lower numbers along the south coast. Adults leave the estuaries to school along the beaches in spring and summer, then move offshore as the water cools after summer.
WA Size & Bag Limits
| Minimum size | 30 cm |
|---|---|
| Bag limit | 8 (only 2 over 50 cm) |
| Counts toward | Counts within the statewide nearshore/estuarine finfish mixed daily limit of 16. |
Minimum size: 30cm. Individual bag limit: 8, of which only 2 may be over 50cm. Tailor count within the statewide nearshore/estuarine finfish TOTAL mixed-species daily limit of 16. Wire trace is banned within 800 m of shore from Tim's Thicket to Two Rocks and in all waters of the Swan-Canning estuary, within 400 m of Busselton Jetty and along the Busselton foreshore, and around Esperance Jetty.
Eating Quality
Yes — good eating, but only if you treat them right. Bleed and ice tailor the moment you land them; the flesh is oily and turns fast in the sun, and a tailor left on the sand for an hour is a bait fish. The flesh is off-white with a grey streak down the lateral line, moist and full-flavoured rather than delicate. Smaller choppers are the sweeter eat; big greenbacks are coarser and stronger, and most people are happier smoking those. Cook fresh the same day — pan-fry or grill the fillets, or barbecue them whole — and trim out the dark lateral strip if you want a milder result. Don't bother freezing; it goes soft and rancid quicker than almost anything else in the esky. Leftovers make superb strip bait for mulloway.
Perth Tips
Cottesloe, South Mole, and the beaches south of Fremantle are reliable spots during the run (North Mole has been closed since the June 2026 storm). Carry a headlamp for pre-dawn sessions and a long-nose pliers for unhooking — those teeth are no joke. Scale and gut tailor on the beach if possible.