Where it's on today
Every one of our 16 benchmark Australia waters has a live read this morning. None reaches 4 out of 5 and 3 are slow. Water runs 8 °C to 26 °C. Pressure is rising on most of them, which costs a point in our model when the sky is clear. 12 have a better-than-even chance of rain.
Adelaide
Two gulfs, a long run of metropolitan jetties and the best King George whiting water in the country, all within an hour of the CBD.
Albany
King George Sound, Oyster Harbour and the Southern Ocean beaches: Albany fishes two sheltered waters and a wild coast from the same town.
Brisbane
A river city with the bay at its door: bream and jew in the Brisbane River, snapper on the bay beacons and flathead on the flats within the suburbs.
Cairns
The tropical north: barramundi in the creeks and the Trinity Inlet, reef fish and pelagics off the Great Barrier Reef, and a wet season that runs the calendar.
Geelong
Corio Bay and the western shore of Port Phillip: piers, the Bellarine, snapper in spring and whiting when the weather settles.
Gold Coast
Surf beaches, the Seaway, the Broadwater and a network of canals: a city built on water that fishes from the sand, the rocks and the jetty in the same afternoon.
Know your fish
Seasons written for the southern year, tactics in local terms, and the waters we cover for each species.
The coast, read like the lakes.
From Adelaide’s jetties to the Seaway walls on the Gold Coast: 206 coastal towns and bays with a modelled tide curve, wind that decides the day and the honest windows for moving water.
Coastal waters →Learn the water
Written for Australia, on the questions anglers here actually search for.
Before you go: the licence
What it costs in every state and territory, read from the agency that sells it, on the date shown on each page. Three of them charge nothing and say what they do require.
New South Wales
All fishing in NSW waters, fresh and salt: line fishing, spearfishing, hand gathering, trapping, bait collecting and prawn netting, and possessing fishing gear in, on or next to the water..
Victoria
All forms of recreational fishing in all Victorian marine, estuarine and inland waters: line fishing, bait and shellfish collection, yabby fishing, prawning and spearfishing, and using or possessing fishing equipment in, on or next to Victorian waters..
Queensland
Queensland has no general recreational fishing licence for salt or fresh water.
South Australia
South Australia has no recreational fishing licence.
Western Australia
Licences are sold by activity, not as one general licence.
All 8 states and territories →
Open right now
Seasons that are open today, worked out from the rule each agency publishes and checked against two years it published. Not a list someone typed in last spring. A species with no published closure is not listed, which is not the same as open.
Victoria
Closes 15 June 2027.
New South Wales
Closes 1 May 2027.
Queensland
Closes 1 Nov 2026.
Queensland
Closes 7 Oct 2026.
Queensland
Closes 15 July 2027.
New South Wales
Reopens 3 Oct 2026.
New South Wales closed seasons → · Queensland closed seasons → · Victoria closed seasons → · Tasmania closed seasons → · South Australia closed seasons → · Western Australia closed seasons →
How it works
Live data, all night
The Bureau of Meteorology’s water gauges, an open weather model, sun and moon: we read the same instruments the agencies publish, for every water we cover.
An honest report, every morning
Each morning the day’s report is generated: activity score, species plan, prime windows. A slow day is called a slow day, and a modelled tide is called a model.
Anglers close the loop
Real reports from real anglers refine what the data says. Share a catch and make the page better for the next person on the water.
Browse by state
643 waters across 8 states and territories, with full coverage rolling out from here.