Southern Garfish position

Southern Garfish are rated as a depleted stock, showing no signs of recovery in the last five years.

One of Tasmania’s favourite target fish during the cooler months of the year, recreational fishers are estimated to have caught 300kg in 2017/18 compared with commercial catches of around 10t. Seasonal spawning closures have been in place in the commercial fishery since 2009, prompted by declining catches.

Due to the clear separation in the timing of spawning activity between the north and the south of the state (the ‘north’ being the north coast and Furneaux group, and the ‘south’ being the remainder), there are two separate commercial closed seasons:

South of the line: 15 November – 14 December
North of the line: 15 January – 14 February

The Government is proposing to extend the spawning closures to recreational fishing for the next three years to give Southern Garfish stocks a better chance of recovering.

TARFish undertook a survey of recreational fishers in October 2022 to develop its position on Southern Garfish.

Almost 90% of respondents supported the annual spawning closure be applied to the recreational sector.

We also asked fishers views on the commercial catch.
Almost 60% want to see the commercial sector continue to catch garfish with added management controls such as a total allowable catch (TAC).

You can read the full position below.