Flathead Trolling

[kenmare]

Hi Fishraiders,

I recently bought a new boat (Quintrex 385 Explorer with Mercury 15hp electric start 4-stroke) for estuary and sheltered bay fishing. Haven't put it in the water yet, but I've been thinking a lot about my favorite fish, the humble flathead: hopefully, as the water warms they'll soon be around in droves.

I'm well set up for soft plastic fishing, but the main reason I selected my boat and motor set-up is because I reckon flatties should be "suckers" for a deep diving hard-bodied lure lure trolled close to the bottom. Problem is, I haven't done much of that style of fishing.

Anyone done much trolling aimed specifically at catching flathead? Any pointers about best time, tide, lures, rigs and so on would be appreciated.

Regards,

Bob

[Bigfoot]

Hey Bob,

Personally, I reckon you would get more fish on the drift..

Don't know 'til you try I guess?????

Good Luck

Catch Ya

Bigfoot

[Davemmm]

Bigfoots right. If there are flattie about you will do better with other forms of fishing.

Having said that a bit of experimenting and you will come up trumps.

I have a couple of spots where I troll from time to time. The most productive is where I run a small lure over sand flats. If I can get the first hour of a run out to coincide with dusk I run SX40's or other similar small lures over the flats at Miainbar in about 700-900mm of water. I let a fair whack of line out and then as i troll I give the rod a lot of movement.

If you pull the rod forward to make the lure move quickly you can then have the lure virtually stop for a second by directing the rod back towards the lure. I will also move the rod tip up and down to have the lure bouncing off the bottom.

I dont know the reason but I have really only been successful trolling for flatties in very shallow flats. I have given it a go in heap of areas over the years but now I will only do it in skinny water over sand and weed.

Dave

[davebrewer]

I've just looked in Calcutt And Simpson's "Book of Lures" :

"It is worth noting that prior to the soft plastic revolution,advanced anglers were taking a lot of flathead on trolled lures.They used echo sounders to fish dropoffs,sticking to contours around the 3-4 metre mark where the deep diving bibbed lures would be scraping along the bottom.This method is still very productive."

It sounds like the trick is to match your lure to the water depth and monitor things closely on your sounder. Very interesting that davemmm has good results with his technique of making a racket on the bottom.Please let us know how you get on Bob.A boat that size is also easy to beach on those midstream flats,allowing you to wade and cast-one of my favourite ways to fish on a warm day.

Cheers,

Dave.

[squizzytaylor]

Try a tilsan Bass and troll the 8-12 foot mark, In murky water use a dark colour (shadow is good) electric is ideal but I picked two up on the weekend with the 60-2stk idling in gear.

Cheers

GT

These are from Sunday. All caught in lake macquarie on a tilsan bass.

[wildfish]

this is the style of fishing that made me realise that theres more to it than casting out a smelly old prawn and hopeing for the best! was trolling divers in a powered canoe! and kept getting flatties in the same spot!

also an ex workmate swares by it he lives on worranora river and sais this time of year he gets a lot of croks up the back end of the river, he uses the little scorpions (rmg i think) and he sets it up with a small sinker before a swivel 1m leader to the lure trolls at walking pace and recons its so easy!

try the flats and dropoffs!

[The Iceman]

Flatties on the troll is easy Troll the edges of weedbeds varying your depth until you find the depth they are sitting in Once you catch one do a few runs over the same area as there will be more there I troll two stretch fives with a tilson minnow and a attack 6 to 10 feet behind them

[peter bisaro]

Hi all

Last week I saw a group of kayak fishers troll small HB's around my local area (Oyster Bay) which has a max depth of 1.8m at high (they fished early morning run in tide) and came up with good haul of flathead you could not jump over. Local tackle shop showed me the lures they used (SX40 rings a bell but that was not the only one), he told me just keep it bouncing over the bottom. I intend to give this a try myself, normally only use SP's myself for moderate success in same area.

Good luck

Pedro

[squizzytaylor]

Thats about what I do PGB get them so they just start to nudge the bottom and stir it up a bit.

GT

[andrew399]

dunno why, but its not really done that much in NSW compared to places like the gold coast where it is very common practice, bu there are alot more sand flats etc then there are in the harbour. Up that way they use the manns stretch lures alot, as well as micro mullets in pink. The rmg scorpions are also a good lure. You just need to have the lure slightly off the bottom, occassionally hitting it... Should be very productive once you get it all figured out.

[jewgaffer]

Hi Kenmare. There is certainly some excellent advise in these replies.

I fish mainly with baits and this is another way of targetting flathead.

With a mate or two to help, I pump nippers in the wetter sands particularly into puddles and making a few wider holes for the rising tide to fill in. My purpose of pumping nippers is to get the usual bi-catch and the activity using nippers for bait and a wide area burlied up with broken up nippers brings flathead in as well.

I chose the day when low tide will be about an hour before daybreak and try to be anchored away from, but within casting distance of the pumping area .

I prefer to turn over sand in patches over a wider area, not doing all the pumping around the same spot, though wide enough to cover the area that will be covered by the rising tide with longer angled casts from the boat.

I make sure I make a bit of a mess in the sand all around the tide line, at the waters edge and I also pump into a foot or so of water.

I anchor in deeper water and fish back towards the churned up sand in staggered casts from the deep parts to the shallowest parts as they tide starts to cover the sand .

The boys are right about murky waters. You need at least a ripple in the water. Clear water means you have to fish deeper or sometimes if it is too clear cast further with the boat anchored well away from the water's edge.

You can be surprised at the bi-catch when you fish back into the pumping area when you are using nippers for bait. That's when either fish baits or salted pilchards and lures work well to get flathead interested enough at times, and I like to give give flathead a good choice of baits.

I like the idea of churning up the sand with a sinker that you chose for that purpose and run about a 300-400mm of trace from a swivel. I prefer tasmanian devils for flathead and have about thirty of them in various colours in both the 7mm and 13mm overall size.

They're are hi-tech divers you can buy that I am not over familiar with though and there is top advice from the boys on good working flathead lures I would say. I may also bottom bounce fish baits or do a bit of deeper water jigging at times. Ialso like 3" inch swagman murray cod hardbodies which are excellent lures, as they have a swaggering, very cocky jack the lad type of a chesty swimming action.

At the top of tide I spend the last part of that particuar session drifting around points and corners.

Cheers

jewgaffer

[kenmare]

Hi Fishraiders,

Thanks for all the replies.

Brisbane Water has a lot of shallow sandy spots surrounded by weed beds and is a noted big flattie hotspot.

I'll soon put the ideas into action.

Regards,

Bob

Edited October 21, 2007 by kenmare

[squizzytaylor]

Kenmare, if youre ever up Lake Macquarie way Id be happy to take you out for a session some time.

GT

[kenmare]

Kenmare, if youre ever up Lake Macquarie way Id be happy to take you out for a session some time.

GT

Hi Squizzy,

I'll PM you.

Regards,

Bob

[bart]

G'day KENMARE ( BOB )

Hoping to take the boat up to the Brisbane Waters very soon. I love drifting for the good old flathead along Paddy's or moving on toward Ettalong. Have not fished up there for quite a while. Are the Blue Swimmers around .

CHEERS BART.

Edited October 22, 2007 by bart

[kenmare]

G'day KENMARE ( BOB )

Hoping to take the boat up to the Brisbane Waters very soon. I love drifting for the good old flathead along Paddy's or moving on toward Ettalong. Have not fished up there for quite a while. Are the Blue Swimmers around .

CHEERS BART.

Hi Bart,

I haven't been out yet (still sorting out my new boat), but the early signs are very promising. Plenty of flathead, bream and blue swimmers being caught already.

Looks like it's going to be much better this summer than last summer, which was a bit ordinary in Brisbane Water. Here's hoping we get some more rain over the next week or two to move things along a bit further.

Regards,

Bob

Edited October 22, 2007 by kenmare