Size Up to 600g.

Habitat They can be found in estuaries, bays, inlets, tidal rivers, coastal waters and some species offshore. The fish are usually attracted to shallow flats with beds of sea grass or structures such piers and jetties in estuaries and rivers. Garfish are a surface feeding fish. Distributed in Victoria, Tasmania, South and Western Australia.

Qualities Can offer spectacular fight.

Record Australian record Southern Sea Garfish 0.379kg.

Best Bait

Tackle

Hints Tackle use for gars is always light with line testing less than three kilograms preferred. A light bream rod and threadline or spinning reel, completes the combination.
Hooks used for garfish are always fairly small, size 8 being tops. Long-shanked hooks are preferred for gars because they are easy to remove from the fishes mouth, but they offer no advantage in hooking the fish. Hook size should be decreased to a short shank size 12 when using tiny baits like maggots.
Gars are usually mid water to surface feeders, so it is more productive to fish baits that are either unweighted, or lightly weighted and suspended under a float.
Quill floats are most often used for garfish, usually on their own, but sometimes in tandem with a running berley float using a fixed quill as a bottom stopper.