g'day guys down here on the pumicestone passage on a chilly winter's morning
just looking for a feed of flathead maybe some tailor
near the bottom of the tide now with the tide turn and once that tide starts pushing in we'll
start looking at a couple of different areas where we can usually guarantee a fish or two
uh heading down at the moment down towards the mouth of the the passage there there's an area
i like to call the gutter um bottom of the tide um coming up probably in the next half hour
um got some good fish out of there 80s a lot of numbers are smaller fish
too so we'll poke down there and have a bit of a look and fish over the bottom of this tide
so chasing flathead in the shallow water um over the last few years we've sort of got it down to a
fairly fine art definitely the lighter leaders i'm going down you know sort of from 16 pound
to 12 sometimes 10 even 8 when they're getting very very touchy light weights quarter white
quarter ounce would be the absolute maximum that you'd ever use um 1 6 and even 1 8 weights um
i i sort of go from using shads and and and prawn imitators all the time that some days depending
maybe on the moon phase or or it's hard to really know but you just go through your different
lures in your box until you find something that you sort of you feel confident in um i've got at
least a dozen sort of go-to lures um sort of from the two and a half inch prawns up to about four
inch shads um you know color wise the debate's out i've caught them on every color um probably again
just whatever you feel confident with um they're the sort of that's the sort of starting blocks um
technique is another one you know like i've i've seen every every technique used over the years and
i like a fairly aggressive approach to it really get the lure ripping and flicking and moving um
it tends to work for me and the lighter weights and the really aggressive approach you'll feel
the bite on the drop you know the flathead will grab it as it's sort of heading back to the bottom
as soon as you feel anything strike um you know not too hard especially with the lighter leaders
because you can actually bust off on strike but you know the flat is of a pretty hard mouth so
you've got to punch that hook home you don't need to use heavy gauge hooks we're only running sort
of six and eight pound braids and light leaders flatted out the hardest fighting fish in the world
um other than that you know with the soft plastics there's other techniques that we've been dabbling
with the big swim baits is a lot of fun um and you know definitely much much much bigger bigger fish
um also we control not much of a fan of trolling in the passage due to the weed problem that we've
got here but in other areas it's a really really really great way to cover ground effectively
vitally important that you get these shads and baits rigged as straight as you can
i'm a bit of a fan of these tt headlocks and they really hold the bait on well
like so
when it comes to catch sense i'm i've used all of
them and i'm pretty confident in saying that they all work
i don't think that it makes the lure taste much better the fish i'm a firm
believer that it actually makes the lure not taste like human it sort of
masks our scent a little bit more which is probably contrary to the regular belief with it
best retrieve is you know long searching sort of casts up current down current doesn't really
matter if your retrieves right wait for your line to go slack that means that the lure is
rested on the bottom as soon as you see it lay then start your jig one two three flicks
whatever you feel confident with but as long as you give it a nice aggressive sort of movement
that darting action can sort of startle and wake up flattered that are pretty much not
interested at some stages of the tide a slower retrieve doesn't seem to elicit the same response
so yeah but there's room for experimentation just just keep trying until you find something
that works for you but vital to follow that line down and wait for that tap even the
big fish will tap it very very gently at times when they're not really in an aggressive mood
might just move us up a little bit um i like fishing sometimes against the current which is
sort of not the most popular technique but i find that it especially when the fishing slow it gives
a little bit more hang time um sort of tempt a a a not interested fishing to have actually having
a bite almost at the bottom of the tide now um water sort of stopped southwesterly just started
to flick up rippling the water a little bit but we've got a nice drain here features like that
very often will hold a fish as the water drops out all the bait pushes off that bank and the
flat edge or you know very predictably will be in attendance so they're always worth a few extra
casts you know sort of left and right of the drain see if you've got a fish holding on point
there we go just like that only a rat
go back and grow
let's do that again
this one might be a keeper
oh yeah nice fish
ah done him that was uh possibly over 50. it um good case like we've been fishing here over
the bottom of the tide and it's been very very very quiet just start to get that change in the
tide and all of a sudden bang fish start feeding it's the trigger just a little bit of movement
get some chewing very early rising tide down in this neck of the woods while generally not
regarded as a great time to fish for here seems to be quite consistently good the run out tide
doesn't fish as well we're at the southern end of the passage i i do the complete opposite tides and
and and have the same sort of success so you know every every area has got um its own personality
you just got to figure it out over a few years just keep trying and trying different moon phases
it's been very cold this morning i've always found that especially on these cooler mornings
we've had a bit of a cold snap um that the fish don't aren't as active very very early
they um they need basically a little bit of warming up they need a little bit of love um
as that sort of sun gets up you'll find the fish will come right up into the shallows and feed so
don't be scared to fish down into 30 centimeters of water um often i find too that those areas are
good to fish because in heavily boated areas like the passage you don't get as much traffic the fish
you know are still quite happily sitting in that shallow water whereas if you're in the
you know the busier areas with boats buzzing over them you've got to fish quite a bit deeper rat
come on they want to catch these things all day
another thing i like to to see in these sort of shallow areas and there's a relationship that i
don't really quite understand is the flooded and the the stingrays when you start seeing a lot of
stingrays you're generally in an area that's going to hold the flathead they sort of feed
i suppose on on similar things a technique that i've been using which is a bit of a laugh for a
few years you'll see big stingrays cruising just rolling along um and quite similar to cobia with
manta rays offshore there'll be a tendon flathead following them so if you see a big stingray don't
be afraid to cast near it behind it because my theory is that as the stingray cruises
he starts to spook all the the small fish and the prawns and the flooded you know sort of sort
of just taking advantage of the disturbance and just darting out and getting a free feed
so a little a good little trick to keep up your sleeve in the in the shallower areas
another good technique i really enjoy and have sort of been experimenting with his fishing deck
back down behind the boat on the um on you know back up towards the boat against the tide which
is sort of not a popular opinion amongst a lot of flatted fishermen but i think that it gives the
lure that good long drop and fall in front of the fish's face gives them a good long time to look at
it and at times it's we've found that it's been out fishing all the other traditional methods so
another little good trick to keep up your sleeve this these sort of gutters with these
melon holes are just absolutely perfect for the flatted sort of one and a half to two meters
you know deep green gutters running all the way through it the flat it'll sit in
the deeper darker water and then just burst out so bringing that lure back
up against the current slowly wafting it down especially on the lighter jig heads
um can sometimes you know really really sort of elicit a good bite stubborn this fish
there we go one flathead
probably closer to 50 that one
so there's a nice eating size flatty sort of probably about
48 centimeters so i'd say he's gonna sit in the esky for someone's dinner
okay
oh folks didn't get you the big flathead i was hoping to
get for you today but we've ended up with a feed and a lot of other sort of
smaller unders we might do this again next time see if we can get you that big girl