When to fish for Luderick: The run-in tide along a breakwall or rock wall is the prime window, because the current pushes the berley trail along the wall and the fish work up into it.
Also known as Blackfish, Sea Blackfish, Parore (NZ). Bait, technique, tide windows, and where the bite is on right now.
Luderick — Winter estuary herbivore — the float-and-weed specialist's fish. Also called Blackfish, Sea Blackfish, Parore (NZ).
Luderick are true herbivores — three-cusped teeth for scraping algae off rock, which is exactly what the species name tricuspidata records, and an intestine several times body length to ferment it. That single fact explains the entire fishery. A weed bait out-fishes prawn by an order of magnitude, and the long-stemmed float rig exists because weed only works when it drifts at precisely the speed of the current. Any drag on the line, and the bait moves like nothing a luderick has ever eaten.
Luderick is also known as: Blackfish, Sea Blackfish, Parore (NZ). Winter estuary herbivore — the float-and-weed specialist's fish.
Regional names can confuse anglers and cause misidentification. The table of common names below covers the most-used alternatives across Australia, New Zealand and the US:
Key to correct identification: check the regulations-authority species sheet for your state or territory before keeping any fish — minimum legal sizes, bag limits and identification guides are published by each fisheries department and are the authoritative source.
How widely Luderick is in season across the 4 regions we cover it in. A full month means every one of those regions has it in season; a faint month means only some do. This is the expected season, not a catch record.
Hero spots in our coverage where Luderick is in season for October. Click through for the live forecast.
Out of season across our covered spots in October. Check back in July.
The float rig is the entire fishery and it is worth building properly. Run a long-stemmed quill or pencil float, string split shot down the trace so the bait sinks slowly and evenly, and set the depth so the weed drifts just above the bottom or just off the wall. Wind the weed onto the shank of a #8 to #10 hook rather than threading it, leaving a short tail waving free. Then drift, do not retrieve: the bait must travel at exactly the speed of the current, because that is what natural weed does and a bait moving at any other speed is ignored. Berley with chopped weed mixed with sand so it sinks in a column rather than washing away on the surface. Strike on any hesitation — luderick mouth the weed rather than engulfing it, and the float dipping and pausing is the take. The best water is estuary rock walls, breakwalls, bridge pylons and the wash zone off low ocean ledges.
The run-in tide along a breakwall or rock wall is the prime window, because the current pushes the berley trail along the wall and the fish work up into it. The last two hours of the run-in and the first of the run-out is the session to plan. Slack water is genuinely dead for luderick, more so than for most species, because the entire presentation depends on a moving drift to look natural.
Luderick are a seasonal rather than a lunar fishery — the run peaks through the southern winter, roughly May to August, when the fish school up along walls and headlands. Within that season, spring tides around new and full moon push stronger current along the walls and produce the better sessions, provided you can still hold a drift. A big spring tide that rips too hard to control the float is worse than a moderate one.
Figures come from each jurisdiction's own fisheries authority, with the source linked on every page above. Rules change — closures in particular are reset annually — so confirm with the authority before you keep a fish.
Luderick carry a minimum length and a daily bag, and as a listed species in New South Wales the possession limit is set at twice the daily bag rather than equal to it — read the per-jurisdiction figures above rather than assuming the two numbers match. The winter run concentrates fish in very predictable places along walls and headlands, which makes them easy to over-harvest at a single spot; the schools are the same fish week after week.
NSW size & bag limits for Luderick — current DPIRD limits, verified →
Olli-Mikael Vaittinen has fished his whole life. Fifteen years of fly fishing, guiding seasons on Norway's Lakselva — his favourite Atlantic salmon river — and a blue marlin landed in Vava'u, Tonga. Founder of Fishare — the app that puts the data behind the decisions every angler makes on the water.
Fishare scores every hour for your spot — tide, weather, light and moon in one verdict — and keeps the rules one tap away on the water. The forecast, saved spots and catch log stay free, forever.
Open Fishare