Southern calamari in Australia

Identification and biology

Southern calamari, Sepioteuthis australis, is the squid of the southern bays: a broad-finned, fast-growing cephalopod that the Status of Australian Fish Stocks report says lives for less than a year, maturing at three to six months and reaching up to 55 cm mantle length and 3 to 4 kg. It spawns inshore and is caught over weed and sand in two to ten metres round the southern half of the continent, from northern New South Wales, the northern edge of its range, to Western Australia and Tasmania. The arrow squid of deeper water is a different animal and a different fishery. Calamari hunt by sight, at dawn, dusk and under lights at night, feeding on small fish and prawns, and they take a jig for the same reason: a small, bright, slowly sinking thing that looks like prey. Because each year’s stock rests on that year’s spawning, limits matter, and Tasmania has used seasonal closures of key spawning grounds in its calamari fishery.

Where they live through the year

Spring and autumn are the peaks in the southern bays, when the adults come onto the inshore weed to spawn: Port Phillip and Western Port, the South Australian gulfs and the jetties of Yorke Peninsula, Cockburn Sound and the west coast, the east coast of Tasmania. Through summer the squid are there but smaller and more scattered, and through winter the deeper weed edges and the pier lights hold them. On the New South Wales coast squid work the weed off the rock platforms and the harbour walls all year, and in the north the tiger squid of the tropics replaces them.

The mistakes that cost fish

Retrieving too fast: a squid jig is worked with a lift and a long pause, and the take comes on the sink, so a jig that never pauses never gets taken. Fishing the wrong size: a 3.0 jig is the standard, a 2.5 for small squid and clear water, a 3.5 in the deeper or dirtier water, and the colour matters less than the sink rate. Casting into open sand instead of over the weed edge, where the squid hunt. And not checking the local rules, because limits differ by state and some spawning grounds have been closed at times.

Reading the report for squid

Calamari fish best on a clear, calm morning or evening with the tide moving over the weed; the wind row and the tide panel on each coastal page tell you both. Pressure matters little. The moon module matters a little: the dark nights under the pier lights fish better. The species card rates the month; the calendar shows spring and autumn as the peaks.

Tackle setups

Playbook by water temperature

The plan the daily report picks for southern calamari in each band; the water temperature on each page is a seasonal estimate for its type of water and says so.

The legal season is a separate question

Activity says when the fish bite; the agency says when you may keep one. These are the closures that name southern calamari, computed for 2026 from each rule as written and read on the date shown. A state with no row publishes no closure for this species, which is not the same as open all year.

Month by month

Activity for the southern year, 1 slow to 5 peak; January is midsummer. Current month highlighted.

Waters we cover for southern calamari

70 Australia waters carry southern calamari on their species card, each with a daily report.

Common questions