15/09/2026
The more you learn about mulloway, the less random their movements start to look.
We often think of jewfish as highly mobile predators constantly moving through our estuaries, but research into their movement paints a much more interesting picture.
Some of that research has been conducted right here in the Georges River, where researchers used ultrasonic tracking to study the movements, home ranges and habitat use of sub-adult mulloway.
One of the most interesting findings was their relationship with deep holes and basins, some up to 20m deep. Smaller fish remained closely associated with these areas during both the day and night, while larger fish were much more likely to leave these deeper holding areas at night and during the early morning. Some larger fish were recorded moving as much as 16km in a day.
Even more interestingly, five wild mulloway monitored over an 11-month period showed strong fidelity to particular holes within their home range.
On a much broader scale, tagging research involving more than 4,300 mulloway along eastern Australia found that 73% of recaptured fish were caught within 10km of where they were released, 31% within 1km, and 81% were recaptured within the same estuary.
Yet these fish are certainly capable of travelling. Around 7% of recaptures involved movements greater than 100km, with the longest recorded movement in the study being 355km. (ScienceDirect)
To me, that’s what makes these fish so interesting.
They’re capable of significant movements, but that doesn’t mean they’re simply wandering around aimlessly. The research suggests that many mulloway can show considerable site fidelity, particularly to productive areas within an estuary, while still having the capacity to make much larger movements.
It also changes the way I think about a “jewfish spot.”
Rather than simply remembering where you caught a fish, try to understand why it was there.
Depth. Structure. Current. Bait. Salinity. Somewhere to hold. Somewhere to feed.
A productive piece of river might appear completely lifeless one night and be loaded with fish the next. Understanding what combination of conditions brings mulloway into that piece of water is where the real challenge — and enjoyment — begins.
Don’t just learn the spot. Learn why the fish uses it.
That’s when chasing mulloway starts becoming a lot less about luck and a lot more about understanding the species.
For a deeper dive into mulloway behaviour, feeding patterns, tides, locations, lure selection and the techniques I’ve developed targeting these fish, it’s all covered in detail in The Jewfish Book.
