The Harbour has been producing some sensational surgeon fish action lately so I’ll take this opportunity to shed some light on this mystery fish.

Despite their abundance, surgeons are rarely seen by recreational fishos for a few reasons. They are weed-eaters, which limits their availability to only luderick anglers. They also have very robust grazing teeth which will nip easily through the light mono leaders used by luderick fishers. I estimate that half of the surgeons we hook nip straight through the leader virtually the second we put the pressure on.

To make matters worse, if they are lip-hooked and are unable to bite through the line, they are dirty fighters – as bad as any king or GT – and half of them will run you into the structure and bust you off. Id bet that most of the bust offs that luderick fishos attribute to drummer are actually surgeons.

They are rarely caught by ocean rock luderick fishers and seem to have a preference for the quieter waters of the harbours and bays. However, my friend Jack Hannan, who spends a lot of time snorkelling, tells me that they are common off the ocean rocks but are generally in deeper water out wide, putting them out reach of the average luderick rig.

Given that all the surgeons we have caught have been on standard luderick methods and baits with a few luderick mixed with the catches, it appears that it is very much a location thing.

I’ve pulled hundreds of luderick from Sow and Pigs, the Wedding Cakes and other locations without ever getting a stray surgeon. The only hint I can give you is to look for either white rock (bald sandstone boulders grazed clean by urchins) or vertical structures like sharp reef edges or deep-water jetties.

Surgeons are powerful fish, with kilo specimens a real challenge on standard blackfish gear. According to the Australian Museum website : “The sawtail surgeonfish (Prionurus microlepidotus ) can be recognised by its grey to brownish coloration and the row of five to six black scutes on the rear of the body. It grows to 70 cm. Adults are found mostly on coastal rocky reefs. Juveniles are usually seen in estuaries and coastal bays. This species occurs in tropical and warm temperate waters of the western Pacific. In Australia it is known from northern Queensland to southern New South Wales, plus Lord Howe Island.”

The tail scutes are scalpel-sharp which, I imagine, is where the name came from, and the flesh is pearl white and delicious. The dorsal and anal fin spines are hideously sharp and inflict painful wounds. The fish has a mouth almost identical to a luderick’s (even in tooth structure) and the skin is closer to shark skin than anything else.

As for catching them, all as I can say is that we did exactly what we normally do for luderick. You might consider upping the tackle a bit if you intend to fish specifically for surgeon and, as I said, they are location-specific.

Try No 6 long-shank hooks but make sure to cover the entire shank with weed. They are nowhere as abundant or wide spread as luderick but they obviously do mix together. When prospecting for them I strongly recommend fishing a cabbage bait close to the bottom (as well as your standard float rig) off a paternoster rig because they mostly sit deeper then luderick.

Surgeons can be caught in water as shallow as 3m but are much more common in 5.5m to 13m. Given that we rarely present weed baits in these sort of depths, it’s not surprising that surgeon fish are an uncommon capture. Who knows what else we might discover fishing deep weed baits? Red morwong and old maids (scats), both vegetarians, are two very real possibilities.

Although they are described as a tropical and warm-water fish, all the surgeons I have caught have been in Winter water temps of 17°. There is no size limit for surgeon but there is a bag limit of five, mainly to protect them from spearfishos.