SAMSON fish are tough customers. With their thick set shoulders and muscly body they punch well above their weight, and are definitely one of the hardest-fighting species we have here in our temperate waters. Samson fish are a member of the Seriola family – along with yellowtail kingfish, amberjacks and almaco jacks – all regarded as tough and dirty. Samson fish were named after the biblical figure of Samson who was celebrated for his herculean strength, and indeed any samson fish caught is a fight to remember.
I love targeting Samson fish; and not only because they fight hard but they smash jigs, lures and live baits with aggression. They’re also a challenging species to find with regularity, which adds to their appeal. Here in my home waters of South Australia we see reasonable numbers of Samson fish at certain times of the year, but they’re rarely easy to find and they demand some dedication for regular success. I have plenty of donut sessions, which makes success taste even sweeter when it comes around.
Our offshore waters of SA still play second fiddle to Western Australia though, which is undeniably the samson capital of the country. Sandgropers certainly have the lion’s share of Sambos over west, and they’re even successfully targeting them landbased from select beaches and rocky ledges in recent years. They’re a tough fish to tame from a boat, let alone from the stones!
Samson fish aren’t just restricted to WA and SA though, with fish found from Moreton Bay in southern QLD and through NSW to Jervis Bay in the south of the state. Numbers are reported as patchy along the eastern seaboard, so if you have a local eastern reef that produces a few nice Samson fish, I’d keep that mark closely guarded.
Then Samson fish are noticeably absent through Victoria and around Tasmania but reappear around the southern tip of the Yorke Peninsula and the western end of Kangaroo Island in SA, and they extend through SA’s western waters and up to Shark Bay in WA. The biggest known aggregations of Samson fish are found near Rottnest Island off the coast of Perth, with the peak aggregations seen from around November to February.
Here in South Oz we see a good run of school sized samsons from December through until March on our states western reef systems, with fish in the 90 – 110cm size range pretty common. As the water cools these fish move further offshore (and speculated to move to the west). Once these summer and autumn fish move on and the water temp drops, the big sambos come out to play. We see a small number of big winter fish moving onto the reefs further to the east, mainly around the lumps south of Spencer Gulf, and these are an exciting class of fish to target.
These big winter samsons are dark bronze to brown in colour and are full of condition with thick shoulders. Any Samson is a good fish, but when they’re up around the 130cm mark and above, they’re a different caliber of fish and they soon sort out inferior knots and tackle.
Samson fish are regarded as a deeper water species, and we mainly see them around bigger reef systems and mounts in the 30 to 90m depth range. It’s not uncommon to catch a stray sambo in shallower water under 30m, but these are typically smaller “blotchies” in the 2 to 5kg size. These blotchies can turn up anywhere, and we’ve caught them while chasing snapper and whiting in Spencer Gulf, and even at a small size they still pull hard.
However, when we’re specifically targeting Samsons, we focus on water depths greater than 35 metres. These fish love hanging around the bigger reefs and edges of bommies, and we’ll start our day by sounding around the area looking for signs of fish. Given their size, samsons mark well on sounders and show up as strong arches or the classic stationary dense squiggle of fish holding deep. They are a schooling fish, so you’ll generally see a few solid soundings close to each other, and quite often holding 10 – 15m above the reef proper.
And this is where a quality sounder and transducer combo comes into its own. I run a Simrad Evo3S on my boat together with an Airmar TM185M 1kw transducer, and the differentiation of larger fish such as samsons is a perceptible contrast against the smaller fish we encounter on the same reefs. Differentiating the different markings comes with time spent using and tweaking your electronics, but once you know what you’re looking for it gives you confidence to thoroughly sound an area for your target species.
On a recent mission out from my home waters of Port Lincoln, we motored around the back edge of a significant reef and saw a small cluster of red arches sitting around 15m above the tapering edge. They looked like samson markings, so I set up a drift line to intercept them and dropped a live bait to that depth. On the first pass the livie was eaten and after a brutal up-and-down fight a solid Samson was boated and tagged and released. Had we not seen these soundings we would have bypassed the mark and been none the wiser.
I prefer to start looking for samsons around the edge of tapering reefs, and even away from the main peak itself as the reef plateaus back towards the seafloor. While we occasionally see a few fish holding above the main peaks, we sound up more fish patrolling around the edges of these reefs. The very tops of these lumps often hold smaller reef species such as bluethroat, leatherjackets and nannygai, which can take their toll on the live bait supply. The bigger the reef or island edge the better, and once you start encountering Samson fish in a particular area it’s always worth re-visiting the same marks as they do frequent common ground.
Fishing technique does vary according to the time of year, especially here in SA. During the warmer months when the water temps are up (over say 16 degrees) then jigging is the mainstay; and while it’s high energy it is a whole lot of fun. We mainly jig with 180 to 250g metals, with the bigger jigs obviously used in deeper water, or when the speed of drift is up. Having your jig crunched mid retrieve – especially when you’re not expecting it – is pretty exciting.
There are plenty of good vertical jigs on the market, but some of our favourites include the Black Magic knife jigs, DTD Sardina, Majorcraft and the Sure Catch Power Jig. Some jigs will come pre-rigged with an assist hook, but always check the quality of the assist and replace if in doubt. I run Harbor Jigging Assist in 11/0 with Kevlar on my jigs and haven’t had any fail yet. When the temperatures start dropping, Samson fish can become a bit sluggish and while they won’t chase down a jig, they’ll still happily eat a live bait.
All of our winter fishing is done with livies, and as mentioned before this is when we see the bigger fish. Salmon trout and calamari are the number one live baits in our local area, but silver trevally, mackerel, scad, and even King George are good secondary options. Because of the by catch seen around these same reefs, big baits are a good choice and are often left alone by the smaller picking fish. And don’t worry, a big Samson has a big mouth and will happily eat a 1 kilo calamari.
When using live squid I prefer a twin hook rig (with the distance between the two hooks dictated by the size of the bait), while for live fish I use a single hook either bridled or rigged through the nose. I mainly use Gamakatsu Big Bait in 10/0 or Harbor 13/0 Live Bait hooks for this kind of work.
Live baiting around heavy reef is no-nonsense work, and I take a fairly heavy-handed approach to this style of fishing. I use a 100cm trace of 150lb mono running from my hook(s) to a 6/0 ball bearing swivel, with all connections crimped with a single alloy sleeve. Above the swivel I run a 130g ball sinker, and depending on the depth and current I’ll increase the number of sinkers to suit.
Down rigging is effective for this style of fishing too, but given the rough terrain I prefer not having a 10lb bomb coming into play if you’re fighting a Samson. It’s important to deliver the live bait at the right depth, with multi-coloured braid helpful for achieving this. Once I’ve marked some fish on the sounder I usually release one additional colour to allow for the bait rising during the drift.
In the tackle department, a quality PE4 or PE5 jigging outfit is ideal when dropping jigs. For longevity of your arms, a lightweight outfit will allow you to jig for longer without excessive fatigue. For live baiting it’s a different story. I have a dedicated PE8 outfit loaded with 80lb braid for dropping baits to our winter samsons. Having an outfit which can put the brakes on a big fish will put more fish into the boat. This isn’t a style of fishing you can let the fish run to tire, this is a lock-it-up and turn their head type of fishing.
Aside from jigging and live baiting, samsons love to eat soft plastics. It can be challenge delivering a softie down to the right depth while fishing over an ocean reef, but occasionally some fish can be found over some shallower grounds, or a school will follow a hooked fish to the surface – and then the fun begins. Larger plastics such as Zman 10” Heroz, Silstar 9” Slapstix and the Squidgie 150mm Fish are all effective plastics for school size samsons and we always have a pack or two hiding in the boat. Jig heads should be around the 2oz to 4oz in weight with a heavy gauge hook of around 6/0 to 8/0.
We had an incredible session last season while fishing with Ryan Carlisle aboard Reel Therapy where we had a school of mid-sized samsons up on the surface. We were in shallower water on the edge of an offshore reef, and the sambo’s were eating everything from plastics to jigs and were even taking stickbaits off the surface – amazing action.
The one downside to catching Samson fish though; they are susceptible to barotrauma and need to be handled carefully to ensure a positive release. In shallower waters (say less than 30m), Samson fish can be speared back into the water, and once they have gained a few metres they can often equalise the pressure enough to swim on their own accord. In deeper water, and especially for larger fish, a release weight is needed. By gaining ten metres you’re giving the fish a considerably better chance of survival.
Although not regarded as a table fish, smaller samsons under a metre are ok table fare and some fishos enjoy taking a sambo home for the table. They’re not as moist as a kingfish fillet, with larger samsons regarded as quite dry, but if you enjoy seafood curries and laksa then samson flesh is quite acceptable for this. They are however an awesome sportfish and their reputation is built on their power and strength and not for their seafood qualities. They are a fantastic fish to target and one of my cool water favourites.
