Words & Images: Jamie Crawford
Located on the south-eastern shores of the Eyre Peninsula, Port Lincoln is a beautiful seaside city nestled around the natural harbor of Boston Bay. Famous for bluefin tuna farming, shark cage diving and being the seafood capital of Australia, Port Lincoln is a must-visit destination for food lovers and outdoor adventurers.
With a stunning national park located on the southern side of the city, along with nearby surf beaches, sheltered bays and coves, the coastline is as diverse as it is beautiful, and with a light population the region has managed to retain much of its natural beauty. There are some breathtaking four-wheel drive treks in the national park for those who enjoy getting off the beaten track, and there’s always a quiet beach away from the crowds waiting to be explored.
Port Lincoln is 260km in a straight line from Adelaide, but the orientation of two gulf systems makes it a 650km drive by road. There are multiple flights operating daily from Adelaide to Port Lincoln through Qantas and Regional Express, with a flight time of only 45 minutes.
But doing the drive in your own vehicle will allow you to load the car with an assortment of rods and reels so you can tackle the variety of fishing on offer. There are many options around Port Lincoln, whether you are land-based or towing your own boat, and with the size and positioning of the bay system, there is always a fishing spot to explore.
Land-based Options
For those travelling to the area without a boat in tow, there are still plenty of land-based options to satisfy the itch. Four jetties around the town are open for recreational fishing: North Shields, the Town Jetty, Brennans Wharf and Kirton Point tourist park are all popular platforms for chasing a feed of fish or calamari.
There are also some rocky shorelines close to town that offer up a few squid, with Snapper Rocks, the Stenross groyne, Snooks Landing and Billy Lights Point all offering calamari from around the broken bottom fringing this shoreline. Early in the morning and late afternoon are the peak times for casting squid jigs for southern calamari, with smaller 2.5-sized jigs ideal. Slow-sinking jigs such as the Shimano Sephia Clinch Long Appeal in size 3.0 is a deadly jig from the shore. If you don’t mind fishing after dark, that can be a good option for our land-based calamari, along with some snook that are often seen feeding under the lights at night.
Tasty King George whiting can be caught from the shore in a number of locations, with the North Shore, the base of Brennans Jetty, the Town Jetty, Snooks Landing, Tulka and Stenross all offering a few. It’s uncommon to get a bag limit of whiting from these locations, but does happen on occasions, but a regular catch would consist of a couple of King George along with by-catch such as silver trevally, tommy ruff and salmon. Again, try fishing around twilight or at night during the full moon with cockles, green prawns or strips of squid all effective baits.
During the warmer months of the year, rat kingfish of around 50 to 70cm visit the bay and they frequent our local jetties around sun-up. They are fussy feeders, with live baits, white soft plastics and small stick baits getting results.
Travelling out of town and into the nearby national park, there are endless options for the land-based fisher, with King George from the sheltered rocks between Wisemans Shack and Fishermans Point. Try identifying areas of broken seagrass with sand holes, and cast into the nearby white holes.
There is some more rock fishing on offer along the eastern-facing shoreline from Cape Donington to MacLaren Point, and down to Memory Cove and West Point for the more adventurous. These rocks drop into deeper water, with sweep, silver trevally, salmon, red snapper, queen snapper and bigger King George all on offer – among the plethora of wrasse!
Also within the national park there are plenty of sheltered sandy beaches that offer some nice southern bluespotted flathead during the cooler months. Try fishing around high tide by casting paddle tail soft plastics on 1/8oz to 1/6oz jig heads. This is visual fishing and loads of fun. Expect a few salmon and good-sized tommy ruff as well.
The south coast of the national park is exposed to the full energy of the Southern Ocean, with Sleaford Bay offering some stunning beaches for the keen surf fisher. Salmon are available year-round from these beaches, but May to October is the peak time when we see schools of salmon push into the near-shore gutters. The surf fishing can be spectacular along this coast, with fish varying in size from around 1kg up to big 4kg models. Casting 40g to 60g metal lures into the surf is an effective way of hooking a few salmon, along with bait fishing on the building tide.
Boat Fishing Inside the bay
If you’ve got your own boat in tow, then the fishing options are boundless around Port Lincoln. There are two main boat ramps around the town, with Bily Lights Point ramp to the south of the city, and Stenross Boat ramp to the north. There are a few beach launch sites as well, but we’ll just stick to the concrete ramps in this feature.
Fishing within the bay, there are good calamari grounds around the slow tapering shoreline to the north of the township, plus around the numerous islands dotted close to Boston Bay. When targeting our local calamari, look for water depths of two to six metres with plenty of broken bottom and weed beds nearby. I favour larger squid jigs of size 3.5 and 4.0 when drift fishing from a boat, which ensures the jig gets down deeper into the feeding zone.
King George are probably the number one target for Port Lincoln boaties, with some good whiting grounds in Proper Bay, along the southern coastline of the bay that borders the national park, plus around Boston Island, which is the large land mass to the east that guards the bay.
Look for sand holes in depths of three to seven metres with light eel grass nearby. Whiting can be caught year-round from the bay, with the southern grounds offering better fishing during the cooler months, and the northern grounds better in the summer months. Try not to berley too heavily during the warmer months, as trumpeters and other pest fish can be prolific.
Port Lincoln is not well known for blue swimmer crabs compared with other nearby hot spots such as Franklin Harbour and Streaky Bay, but Lincoln’s crabs are a size-class of their own. We see big and meaty blue swimmer crabs push into the shallow fringes of the bay from early January through to late April, and a good drop potting session should yield anywhere from a dozen blue swimmers upwards, which is plenty for a feed for the whole family. Proper Bay and Spalding Cove are a couple of the favourite locales for blue swimmers, with baited hoop nets the popular method. Try leaving them set for around 15 minutes and move the pots around until you find some co-operative crabs.
Still staying within the bay, we see quite a few salmon up to around 1kg along with some nice snook and silver trevally around Billy Lights Point, Sapphire Waters, Grantham Island, the North Shore, Spalding Cove and around Boston Island. This is easy fishing where a couple of 50mm to 70mm diving minnows can be set behind the boat, and slowly trolling at 5 to 7km/h until some fish are located. Occasionally small kingfish will also join the action.
Boat Fishing Outside the Bay
The boat fishing options increase exponentially once you leave the confines of the bay waters, with more King George grounds, plus bluewater reefs for pelagic and reef species. Travelling past Point Boston to the north and Cape Donington to the south denotes leaving the sheltered waters of Boston Bay and into southern Spencer Gulf waters. The influence of ground swell is negligible just outside of the bay, but the further south you travel, the closer to open and exposed waters you will be.
There are some good King George grounds to the south of Lincoln, starting at Carcase Rock, MacLaren Point, Taylors Landing and through to Thistle Island. The whiting from these grounds are a good class of fish, with plenty around the 40cm mark, with the occasional fish nudging the magic 50cm barrier. These grounds fish well during the cooler months with depths of eight to 14 metres productive. By-catch over the whiting grounds includes red mullet, silver trevally and a few flathead. There are some big calamari in this area too, with Taylors Island and Memory Cove outstanding locations for XOS squid.
This area is referred to as The Passage, named after the narrow body of water between the nearby chain of islands. The Passage funnels the movement of water in and out of this area, which can create choppy water during big tidal movement.
At the bottom end of The Passage, the water starts to taper away from a maximum of 20m down to around 55m, offering plenty of tapering reef edges for tasty species such as red snapper, queen snapper, school and gummy sharks plus the occasional harlequin fish. The southern side of Williams Island is a hot spot for these reef species. Look for tapering edges and markings of fish holding close to the seafloor.
We see plenty of pink snapper around these same offshore reef systems, but at the time of writing we are still within an extended snapper ban (scheduled to lift in mid-2026), which covers all reef systems in this region.
When summer rolls around it signals the arrival of our school bluefin to the grounds to the south of Port Lincoln. We see a good run of school fish through our local area, with fish in the 8-15kg bracket found in offshore areas such as Low Rocks, Williams Islands, Neptune Islands and the Cabbage Patch. These areas are a fair run from the ramp, so good weather is needed for most trailer boats. Look for bait and birds feeding around these offshore reefs and islands, and run a spread of lures to locate some fish. Some of these same offshore areas also offer a few yellowtail kingfish and samson fish during summer and autumn.
Amenities
With a population of around 15,000 people, Port Lincoln offers all the amenities you would expect from a regional city of this size. The big-name supermarkets are present in town, along with the usual takeaway food options, in addition to restaurants and four pubs.
Accommodation options are vast and varied, from Airbnb housing to rental flats and cabins. There is a well-appointed caravan park on the southern side of town at Kirton Point, with stunning views overlooking the bay. Port Lincoln is a beautiful regional city with a spectacular coastline to match. The fishing is first-rate, and if you haven’t explored our local area yet, I would encourage you to do so!
