EVERY region has a go-to table fish – a fish that can be found with consistency in that area and offers great eating. In the north it’s golden snapper, in the east pearl perch and pink snapper rate pretty highly, over west it’s dhufish, around Tassie it’s the delectable trumpeter, and here in South Oz it’s red snapper. Our red snapper offers the whitest, sweetest flesh, and is without a doubt the first choice when it’s time for a seafood feast in our household.
Also called Bight redfish or locally called nannygai, they aren’t to be confused with the smaller nannygai of the east. Our red snapper are akin to a nannygai on steroids, often exceeding 60cm in length and nudging 4kg in weight. A standard red snapper will be around 40 to 50cm in length, and they’re a prime table fish at this size. The smaller nannygai of the east in comparison only average 20 to 30cm, and they don’t offer the same sweet flesh as found on our reds.
Our red snapper are slightly different in appearance to true nannygai too – but at first glance it’s hard to tell. The true nannygai lack the prominent white lateral line which adorns the brilliant red flanks of our fish. Both species have oversized eyes – too big for their body one might say – which is evidence of the deep water they frequent.
Red snapper have always been a popular target on our southern reefs, but they’ve grown in popularity in recent years since the extended pink snapper ban was implemented here in SA. They have been a good distraction on our bluewater reefs, and although not growing to the same proportions as a pink snapper, nor fight as hard, they can be found in good numbers and still offer great fun on the deeper reefs. Red snapper are often found alongside our pinks, but are a superior seafood commodity in comparison.
Red snapper are found right around the southern half of our country from the south coast of NSW around to Lancelin in WA, but they have the strongest following in South Australia and southern WA where their numbers are highest. The reef systems through the Great Australian Bight are regarded as the stronghold of red snapper; enough to support a demersal trawl fishery.
We have some fantastic reef systems around the lower Eyre Peninsula of SA and extending beyond the WA border to the west. A typical red snapper session will involve accessing ledges and mounts in water greater than 30 metres. Anything shallower and unwanted species often dominate the catch, but as soon as you push past that 30 metre mark the red action increases significantly.
This rules out fishing for red snapper in our Gulfs, with the depth rarely exceeding 30m through these two large bodies of water. As soon as you clear the Gulf waters and push into exposed ocean waters the depth begins to taper away, and more limestone ledges begin to appear.
Some of the best red snapper reefs we visit lay in 50 to 60m of water, where solid schools can be found on a regular basis around the bigger reef systems. The red snapper fishing continues into deeper water, and in our area we have some fantastic reefs in +80m of water, but dropping baits and heavy sinkers while drift fishing in these kinds of depths starts to become hard work. Like most fishing – the less frequented reefs often turn up the biggest fish, with any fish up around 60cm a stud fish.
Unfortunately we’re starting to see some localised depletion now on some of the more accessible inner reefs. Red snapper are a slow growing, long lived species and have been recorded to 80 years of age, which is a daunting thought.
Some of the big red snapper we encounter must be +30 years of age. Red snapper love to hang on limestone reefs and are often seen by divers inside caves and underneath overhanging ledges. They love gnarly undulating seafloor. But this isn’t where we typically sound up the larger schools. We often pick up bigger numbers of fish away from the main reef, and sometimes even 50 or 100m away from these prominent peaks.
This is quite evident after or even during periods of heavy groundswell, where we’ll find good schools of fish away from these mounts, obviously a strategic move away from the height of water movement. The fish still hold over hard bottom, but it’s over the flat plateauing base of these reefs rather than along the peak or walls.
I used to think that red snapper would hold over the same mark day in and day out, but more time in recent years targeting this species has taught us a few things. While you will get a residual population of fish handing on a particular reef, larger schools are actually quite nomadic and will roam between reefs. Where we’ve found red snapper on previous trips, there’s no guarantee we’ll catch them on the same mark on the next trip out. good amount of time simply sounding around the reef, looking for likely markings. When you see a school or reds on the sounder it’s pretty unmistakable.
I am glued to my sounder screen when targeting red snapper, and with well-tuned electronics you can mark schools of red snapper quite clearly, and it’s quite simple to differentiate this species away from the smaller swallowtail, barber perch and leatherjackets. I really enjoy sounding over a reef while watching the screen; that anticipation of finding a good school of fish.
I switched transducers about a year ago, and the model I selected was with red snapper in mind. I mounted an Airmar TM185M which is a medium frequency transducer with a narrow cone beam of 11-16 degrees, allowing me to dial in on fish directly underneath the boat and to plan a drift accordingly. The target separation is awesome through the Simrad head unit, and we don’t drop a bait until we sound up some good red snapper markings. I usually spend a good amount of time simply sounding around the reef, looking for likely markings. When you see a school or reds on the sounder it’s pretty unmistakable.
Once we’ve found some fish, it’s time to drop some baits. While red snapper love to hit slow pitch jigs and rigged soft plastics, we still do a lot of bottom bouncing with baits to get some fish on ice. Paternoster rigs made from a hard wearing 80 to 100lb monofilament line is a good option, and I crimp bran swivels onto the trace line to accommodate my two droppers. These swivels help to reduce line twist when dropping and retrieving baits. At the end of each dropper I have a single 8/0 Gamakatsu octopus hook; a proven pattern for this style of bottom bouncing. The amount of lead will vary on the day according the speed of drift, but an 8oz snapper lead is the standard weight.
Red snapper have huge mouths and have no trouble inhaling bigger baits. Firm baits such as squid heads, octopus tentacle, and cut baits such as half tommies, mackerel and scad are all effective offerings. They absolutely love pilchards, but if you miss the bite you’ll be cleaned out. Luminous 6cm plastic squid are really effective too, and you can buy pre-made dropper rigs with plastic squid which are super-effective. The red snapper do chew them up a bit, but they’re perfect for younger kids as there’s no re-baiting required, just drop and slowly tea-bag the rig.
Sometimes red snapper will fumble with a bait, but the better fish will generally eat the bait and you’ll slowly load up to the weight of a good fish. Keep the pressure on as they are masters at shaking their head and throwing the hook. This is especially so when they’re up on the surface, and I’ll invariably slip the net under any good fish to make sure they don’t throw the hook before they can be hoisted over the gunnel.
A word of warning though – red snapper have razor sharp gill operculums, and even on the back edge of each scale is super sharp. They were crafted with defense in mind. If you grab them on the bottom jaw you’ll be safe, or use a rag to hold them while you remove the hook. Using an Iki Jime spike for the fish you’re going to keep is a great habit to get into, and then straight into an ice slurry.
Because of the weight of lead required to fish these depths and the occasional larger bycatch it’s hard to target red snapper with light line. Our standard red snapper outfits are PE3 jig rods with 6000 size threadline reels fishing 30lb braid as a minimum. I really enjoy targeting red snapper with overhead tackle, and I have a lightweight combo capable of fishing 40lb braid which is perfect for red snapper and will still handle the occasional bigger quarry.
Around our reefs the bigger bycatch includes the occasional samson fish, blue groper, school and
gummy sharks, queen snapper and pink snapper. Move over the border into WA and that list extends to include dhufish. And I suppose that’s one of the reasons I really enjoy bouncing baits for red snapper, you don’t know what you’re going to lock horns with around these bluewater reefs.
Fishing with bait gives you a good chance of hooking something a bit bigger than red snapper, but if bait fishing isn’t your thing, don’t worry red snapper still respond well to a variety of lures. Fishing with lures can actually be a good way of being target specific if you want to avoid this bycatch.
Some good lures include slow pitch and micro jigs in the 60 to 100g size, bottom jigs such as Shimano’s Tiger Baku Baku, Vexed Bottom Meat jigs and the Catch Kabura jigs. Red snapper are quite aggressive, especially when they’re schooled up, and have no problems swiping a larger lure. Dropping soft plastics on 3oz to 5oz jig heads accounts for some nice red snapper too, with the enticing action of Berkley Nemesis, Daiwa Bait Junkies and Shimano Reef Wrigglers all effective plastics.
And although red snapper are a great table fish, their return isn’t great with their oversized head accounting for a large percentage of their body weight. For this reason a lot of fisho’s have a self imposed minimum size which is larger than the government regulated size limit. In both SA and WA the regulated size is set at 30cm, which offers a very small fillet for the actual size of fish.
On my boat we only keep red snapper over 40cm, with the return from a 40cm fish close to double that of a 30cm fish. Red snapper have a hard swim bladder, and not a soft membrane like that of pink snapper, and don’t suffer the same effects of barotrauma. I wouldn’t recommend targeting red snapper for a catch and release session as there are ethical questions to be raised from pulling fish from deep water just for sport, but if you are fishing for a feed then rest assured your smaller red snapper have a good chance of post release survival.
They might be a primeval looking fish, or even akin to an angry goldfish, but on the table there aren’t many southern species which would rival a red snapper. They’re certainly a favourite of ours and we enjoy dropping baits around our southern reefs for them.
