Jamie Crawford divulges the vast opportunities boaties can explore across Port Lincoln’s fish-rich waters.

Port Lincoln, located on the lower Eyre Peninsula in South Australia, is a vibrant seaside city with a strong history of fishing and maritime. Commercial poling for southern bluefin shaped the town throughout the 60s and 70s, but in more recent years’ tuna farming (ranching), agriculture and tourism has largely supported the region.
Discovered by Matthew Flinders in 1802 and named after his native countryside of Lincolnshire in England, Port Lincoln is nestled on the shores of Boston Bay, and is home to approximately 15,000 people. Had it not been for a lack of freshwater supply, Port Lincoln would have been proclaimed our state’s capital city, largely due to the deep, expansive natural harbour and stable climate.
Outside of this large harbour is a myriad of near-shore and offshore islands, reef systems and sheltered coves. Diversity in the landscapes and varied fishing options is one of our regions greatest qualities, but this can also be daunting; with so many options on the plate it can be hard to know where to start. Below we’ll take a look at the boat options available from Port Lincoln, to help steer visiting anglers in the right direction.

Southern bluefin tuna show up on the reefs wide of
Port Lincoln from December to around April and are a popular target.

BAY OPTIONS
Due to the expansive bays on Lincoln’s doorstep, you don’t need a big boat and you needn’t travel far to secure a feed. Branching from Boston Bay are several shallower bodies of water including Proper and Porter Bays as well as Spalding Cove. These bays, along with the shallower fringes of the main bay, return a good mix of bread and butter species including King George whiting, squid, garfish, herring and blue swimmer crabs.
Whiting are the most popular species in town and are largely targeted through areas of ribbon weed and scattered sand holes in the 3 to 6 m range. There are some productive grounds to try from Tulka through to the Monument in Proper Bay, plus along the North Shore in Boston Bay and around the sand holes to the north of Boston Island.
While whiting can be caught year round in Port Lincoln’s waters, winter is the prime time for consistency for these bay fish. It’s a good idea to use berley – crushed mussel is fantastic if you can get hold of some – but commercially available pellets and even prawn heads make good berley for these inshore fish.
Southern calamari are another popularly targeted species around Port Lincoln. We have some good squid grounds within the bay, with Billy Lights Point, the Lions Park along the North Shore, around the Brothers and Boston Island all returning good numbers of squid. Looking for heavy weed and scattered reef in 2 to 5 m of water is a good starting point. We generally fish for our calamari on the drift, and fan casts around these reefs and rocky points until we locate a patch of them.
Blue crabs have made a remarkable come-back in local waters over the past three years. These crustaceans had basically disappeared from local waters, but have made a strong recovery which is great news for local fishos. We still don’t have the numbers of crabs as seen further up the Gulf, but the size of our blueys is remarkable. Dropping hoop nets during the day is the most popular method of gathering a feed of fresh crabs.
All of the shallow sections of the bay yield crabs from December through until April, with ribbon weed out to around six metres seemingly preferred by the blueys. Good areas to try include Boston Bay from Stenross ramp to the town jetty, in Proper Bay between Grantham Island and Tulka, the weed beds around Horse Reef and inside Spalding Cove.

Other targets available for boat fishos within the bay include garfish and herring for those prepared to set up a berley trail. These tasty fish respond well to a tuna oil, bread and pellet concoction. Salmon of varying sizes are also found within the bay, with schools of smaller fish up to about a kilogram readily available from September to December. These fish can be seen feeding on the surface and can be targeted by trolling or casting small diving minnows in the 60 to 90 mm size or small metal slugs up to 20 grams.
We have a decommissioned wharf on the southern side of Billy Lights point which acts as a structure for quite a few species. Anchoring near the wharf and creating a berley trail often sees some silver trevally, salmon, herring and even a few snapper caught.

FURTHER AFIELD
While the bay fishing can be pretty good for bread and butter species, it’s not until you leave the confines of the bay that the options broaden to include more coveted temperate species. We have a number of small shoals due east of Port Lincoln including Jane, Nicolette and Penny which offer a few pan sized snapper, queen snapper and big whiting on the bottom, with some big snook and a few bronze whalers and hammerheads in the upper column during the warmer months.
To the south of Port Lincoln lies Thorny Passage; a body of water bottlenecked between the mainland and a cluster of islands. With seven main islands, they form part of the Port Lincoln National Park, except for Taylors and Thistle which are privately owned. The water is quite deep through Thorny Passage and it’s not uncommon to be fishing in 40 m of water within a stone’s throw of the mainland or a nearby island.
There is a lot of productive reef and ledges throughout the passage, with red, pink and queen snapper all caught around these reefs. Harlequin, gummy and school sharks and even blue groper take baits in these areas too. Groper are protected in this region, so if you manage to land one, you will have to release it immediately.
There are plenty of productive whiting grounds through the shallower margins of this area. These whiting are generally bigger models than those found through the shallower inshore bays, with the average size up around the 40 cm mark. The more productive whiting grounds are found around Taylors Island and Thistle where the water is in the 5 to 10 m range. There are also some thumping squid available through this area, so it pays to have a jig out the back.
You will also encounter a few southern bluespot flathead over the same whiting grounds. These flatties often take baits intended for whiting, but you can specifically target them through this area by nosing your boat into the shallows and casting plastics along the edge of the weed or where sand meets rock. These are generally 30 to 50 cm fish, but you do get some bigger flathead up to 70 cm on occasions.
The Sir Joseph Banks group of islands lies approximately 40 km north east of Port Lincoln. The Group consists of 21 islands and offers a good mix of fishing for shallow water species as well as deeper reef fish. The Group is well-known for its whiting fishery; but as with all whiting fishing in SA, the fish are getting harder to find.
There are some good weed meadows around Reevesby and Spilsby Islands, and these would be the two most popular islands for targeting whiting, and are a good starting point. Some good sized garfish and squid are also found through these shallower margins. Moving away from the shallows, there are also good reefs and hard bottom throughout the Group on which you will find silver trevally, sweep, plus a few snapper and gummy sharks.
The snapper found through this area – and around Port Lincoln in general – typically aren’t the big knobby-headed reds found further up Gulf waters. These are generally smaller fish in the 1 to 3 kg bracket. There are a couple of good reef systems and shoals in Buffalo and Rosalind which offer more consistent snapper fishing, but these are a solid run from the mainland.

OFFSHORE
The offshore fishing from Port Lincoln is fantastic; when the weather permits and if you don’t have your own boat it’s not a problem. Why Not Fishing Charters offer live-aboard trips from Port Lincoln, and will put you right in the thick of the action. Why Not recently hosted the AFN crew for a three day live-aboard trip from Port Lincoln, sampling some first-class whiting and bluewater fishing.
We have a lot of grounds to the south of Thorny Passage which offer reef fishing as well as seasonal pelagics. Most of the reefs in this area rise from around 80 m of water and peak at anything from 60 to 20 m from the surface. The better reef systems start from Williams Island and extend southwards and include South Neptunes, Low Rocks and the Cabbage Patch. North Neptune Island used to be consistent for kingfish, big salmon, trevally and bluefin tuna, but is now a Marine Park Sanctuary Zone and is out of bounds to recreational fishos.
The above grounds are a fair run from the all-weather ramps in Port Lincoln and range from approximately 50 km from Lincoln to just over 100 km one way, so you need a good window of weather and a seaworthy boat to safely access these grounds. There are a couple of beach launch options down the coast from Taylors Landing and Fishery Bay which reduces the travel time, but you need to make sure there’s no swell running before attempting to launch from these locales.
We get a good run of southern bluefin in these southern waters from December through until March each year, and while these are mainly smaller school fish, their numbers have been really strong over the past 4 or 5 seasons. These fish are typically in the 10 to 20 kg size range, but we get a few bigger fish to around 35 kg as well. Because we don’t see the barrels in our waters it means we can downscale our tackle to target these school fish, which makes them great fun.
Also on these reef systems are some samson fish and a few kingfish. These fish are mainly taken jigging and live baiting the reefs, but a few are caught on dead baits too. Silver trevally up to 4 kg are also pretty common on these reefs in the warmer months.
The shallower shoulders and peaks of these reefs return some nice queen and red snapper (aka southern nannygai). We don’t see many pink snapper on these deeper reefs; they tend to thin out from 40 m onwards. Other reef regulars include swallowtail, blue groper, big sweep, school and gummy sharks, and the inevitable rock cod and leatherjackets. Bottom bouncing baits while on the drift is the most popular technique of securing a feed of tasty reef fish, but micro jigs, slow jigs, octo jigs and soft plastics all account for some nice fish.
As you can see, the boat fishing opportunities are almost endless in the waters surrounding Port Lincoln. The main restriction in our area is the weather. It can be a windy place at times, but having said that we also get some nice spells of calm weather. Our most stable weather occurs in March and April, otherwise it’s a case of sitting it out until a window presents itself. Luckily there are plenty of land based options around Port Lincoln for those windy days, and for the non-boater. Stay tuned for a rundown of Port Lincolns land based options in an upcoming issue.

Jamie Crawford lives in Port Lincoln, South Australia and had his first fishing article published in 1998. He presents a local fishing report on TV each week. He loves the varied fishing options in his local waters, but also enjoys travelling to new locations and targeting new species. His professional background is marine aquaculture, where I’ve been involved in the hatchery production of several marine finfish species.