Where and when to catch Fiddler Ray (Banjo Shark) in Victoria: the VIC season, the spots in our guide that hold them, and where to find VIC's current size and bag limits.
Skates, rays and guitarfish, fiddler rays included, can't be taken within 400 m of any pier, jetty, wharf, rock wall or breakwater in Victoria. Release any banjo caught here.
Skates, rays and guitarfish, fiddler rays included, can't be taken within 400 m of any pier, jetty, wharf, rock wall or breakwater in Victoria. Check how close the nearest structure is before you keep one.
Banjo sharks are one of Port Phillip's most familiar bycatches: a harmless, banded ray that cruises the sand and seagrass under the piers and often finds the whiting bait first. They're also why Victoria's pier rules read the way they do. After a public campaign over how rays caught off the bay's piers were being treated, the state banned taking rays, skates and guitarfish near piers, jetties and breakwaters in 2017. So the job is simple: unhook it, put it back, and get on with the whiting.
Western Australian limits don't apply in Victoria.
Where to Catch Fiddler Ray (Banjo Shark) in VIC
Sand and seagrass in the sheltered bays, around the piers and along the bay beaches, which is where Victorian records of the species cluster. The spots below list them.
Nobody needs a special bait. Squid, pilchard, prawn, pipi, crab and fish strips fished on the bottom for whiting, flathead or gummy sharks all get eaten, which is how most fiddler rays are caught.
Lures
Not a lure fish. A bait sitting on the sand is what finds them.
Rigs
No dedicated rig: whatever is on the bottom for whiting, flathead or gummy sharks is what they take. Fiddlers crush rather than cut, so they don't bite through mono, and a circle hook usually lodges in the corner of the mouth, which makes the release quick.
Technique
A hooked fiddler ray is a heavy, slow weight that hugs the bottom rather than a runner. Keep steady pressure and bring it into the shallows or a landing net rather than hauling it up a pier by the line. If it's going back, unhook it in the water where you can, keep fingers clear of the thorns along the back and shoulders, and support the body rather than lifting it by the tail.
Best Time
Caught by day and after dark, year-round. Divers see them over the sand and around pier pylons in daylight, anglers meet them at night on gummy shark baits, and a tracking study of the east-coast species found it busiest by day on a reef. With signs pointing both ways, the bite times lean neither way and are a soft guide.
Skates, rays and guitarfish, fiddler rays included, can't be taken within 400 m of any pier, jetty, wharf, rock wall or breakwater, so a banjo caught from a pier, jetty or wall goes back.
Away from those structures, fiddlers count in one combined limit shared with every other skate, ray and guitarfish. Check the VFA's number before you keep one.
A ray you keep can't be filleted in or on Victorian waters. Keep it whole or gutted until you're away from the water; the cleaning tables at the boat ramp are fine.
The VFA asks anglers to treat rays and banjo sharks humanely, and any unwanted catch must go back immediately with the least possible injury. Fines apply.
Identification
Also known asBanjo shark, banjo, fiddler, southern fiddler ray, magpie fiddler ray (black-and-white colour morph)
A flattened, almost oval disc with a short, broadly rounded snout, then a thick, shark-like tail carrying two dorsal fins of similar size and a proper tail fin. There is no whip and no stinging barb. The back is yellowish to brown with broad, dark-edged grey or lilac bands radiating from the eyes and across the disc, and rows of thorns run down the middle of the back and over the shoulders. Two species share the name: the southern fiddler ray has three short parallel stripes behind the eyes, while the eastern fiddler ray has a dark bar between the eyes and a triangle or diamond marking behind them. Some southern fiddlers are mottled black and white; they were once described as a separate magpie fiddler ray until genetics showed they're the same fish. Shovelnose rays are the usual mix-up and belong to a different genus: their front end is wedge-shaped with a long, pointed snout, and they lack the fiddler's banding. Stingrays and stingarees carry a venomous barb on the tail.
Size & Growth
Southern fiddler rays reach about 1.46 m and 6–7 kg, eastern fiddler rays about 1.2 m and rarely more than 1.1 m, and females are the bigger sex. In the southern species males mature at about 68–70 cm and seven years, females at about 89–90 cm and nine years, and they live to about 15. Females carry two to five pups for about a year, with most of the growth packed into the last few months, and give birth in autumn to pups of 21–25 cm. Little is known of the eastern species' biology beyond its size and litters of two or three. Late maturity and small litters are one reason most are put back.
Diet & Habitat
Fiddler rays live on sand flats and in seagrass beds, often next to rocky reef, from the shallows out across the continental shelf, and occasionally move into estuaries. Divers see them around jetties and wharves. They eat crabs, shrimps, worms, molluscs and small fish, crushing shells with rows of small, blunt teeth, and the young live on tiny crustaceans such as amphipods and mysid shrimps. They scavenge too, pushing into fish traps and taking baits left on the bottom for other fish.
Eating Quality
Edible, with meat often compared to gummy shark, but most anglers let them go because a fiddler gives little meat for the work. As with other guitarfish, the part worth eating is the thick tail, skinned and taken off the cartilage. Bleed and ice it straight away, as with any shark or ray, or the flesh picks up an ammonia smell. Big females are the breeding stock, so they're the ones to put back.