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Broken Bay 50m - A few flatties


dlvbw

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Hey raiders,

Headed out with my boys (8 and 6) and a friend (8) in search of flatties on a beautiful Sunday afternoon. It was the friend's first time out on the boat and he was frothing to get amongst the fish. Headed out of Pittwater in great conditions checking out the seals on the rocks on Barrenjoey on the way. First stop wasn't the flathead grounds but a maritime officer on a jet ski who pulled us over just as we were going past the heads. He checked all the offshore safety gear, which was all in order and off we went.

Once at the 50 metre we set up a drift and put down some typical baits. Whilst we had plenty of throwbacks we got a few nice fish, the biggest in the low 50s. Nothing crazy but we were constantly getting hits which is pretty much all that matters when you have the kids on board.

Overall a great arvo on the water with the boys. 

Cheers
D

BTW - I am thinking of changing to wide gap hooks - if anyone has any thoughts on this please let me know

2020_7_Flathead.jpg

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1 hour ago, dlvbw said:

BTW - I am thinking of changing to wide gap hooks - if anyone has any thoughts on this please let me know

Hi @dlvbw great catch and even better job taking the kids out - good on you.

If you check my past posts I do pretty well on the offshore flatties. I switched to 6/O Suicide (pretty wide gape) ages ago. I fish these on a two dropper paternoster rig. I have found the wider gape tends to hook the bigger flatties around the corners of the mouth making it easier to remove the hooks (rather then the deep throat hookup that I got with smaller hooks). I also found that I get fewer juveniles and pickers - don't get me wrong - you will still get some (it never ceases to surprise me how a flattie whose head is just bigger than the hook can get itself caught on that hook!). 

I fish with an SP jerk shad (10cm) on the top hook and bait on the lower hook. I also use a sinker jig attached right at the snapper lead which has accounted for quite a few big flatties, octopus, mowies, pannies etc.

image.png.fffa940e9b314982b3e2a1dbe7f94b01.png

I have also posted about my flattie "drift and drop" technique and the logic behind it in other posts.

Cheers Zoran

 

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Nice effort there.

Yes I also use suicides for bait rigs/inshore mostly, deepsea I more go for circles but depends what I am fishing for.

 

Circles work great even if your just leaving the rod in the holder, they tend to just hook themselves up on a firm drag.

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Never tried wide gape hooks (also known as Kale hooks) on dropper rigs outside but use them exclusively when drifting in estuaries with live baits for flatties. I get better lip hook ups with them and less line twist with light lines as they don't have any kerb or offset.  I also fish them like a circle hook in that I don't strike, but let them hook themselves or load up by winding in slowly.    Ron 

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I always have a 3/0 wide gap Shiner not far above the sinker and use cut baits when fishing inshore for flathead. Probably catch over 75% of flatties on the bottom paternoster dropper with the wide gap hook. Lately, even whiting are being caught on this bottom hook as well although they are more likely to be caught on one of the top two 2/0 hooks.

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On 8/6/2020 at 7:31 PM, campr said:

Never tried wide gape hooks (also known as Kale hooks) on dropper rigs outside but use them exclusively when drifting in estuaries with live baits for flatties. I get better lip hook ups with them and less line twist with light lines as they don't have any kerb or offset.  I also fish them like a circle hook in that I don't strike, but let them hook themselves or load up by winding in slowly.    Ron 

I always use those wide gape hooks on my paternoster rigs when drifting for flathead offshore. Usually get a nice clean hookup in the lip or corner of the mouth. Fish them like a circle. They are a lighter hook, though ... I have had a couple rushed by snapper.

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Cheers Zoran, Ron and others. I love the fact that the most basic topic still creates interesting discussion on Fishraider.

Zoran, I cant find your referenced "drift and drop" report. Let me know if you can flick me a link. 

Also, if any of you are keen to come out on my CC let me know. I am always looking to make new fisho connections. Just PM me.

Cheers

D

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I've been using a mixture of hooks, but most recently, the Eagle Claw Kahle hooks on the paternoster rigs. I've found that they seem to survive the jacket plagues too, so less lost gear and the Jackets are pretty good eating.

I've also used the  @zmk1962 squid on the sinker, and have found it to be very successful, but the main thing is, you gotta be on the bottom.

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5 hours ago, dlvbw said:

Zoran, I cant find your referenced "drift and drop" report. Let me know if you can flick me a link. 

Hi Duncan, Yup I had trouble finding my old stuff as well - seems the search engines find stuff before 2014 and after 2019... but if I narrow a search then I can locate stuff from 2017, 18 etc.  Strange. Anyway... here are links with a bunch of references to different offshore flattie set ups that I use:

The sinker jig:

I'll summarise my "drift and drop" technique again because I could not locate the original post.

Bluespot flathead prefer a sandy bottom, but like any bottom dwelling predator they like some structure - so I look for depth contour lines that are close together signifying a drop off - Flathead are also carnivores and like other fish are opportunistic feeders - they do not like to expend unnecessary energy - so they'll be lurking on the deeper side of the drop off waiting for prey to swim/drift over them. I usually mark a few spots that meet that criteria at various depths (30-40-50-60m) - because they do tend to move up and down at different times of year - not sure what makes them do this !! We then drift across these locations as drifting helps you cover more ground.

One of my theories is that because flathead are carnivores, they tend to hang around in schools of roughly the same size fish - it prevents them getting eaten by their mate.  So when we come across consistent hits from the pickers we keep drifting (or motor until we are another 10m deeper). We drift until we start catching the bigger models.  At this point I drop the anchor - swinging on the anchor rode usually lets us pick up the bigger models that have schooled together in that gully or drop off - if the bite slows its quite easy to let out another 10-20-30m of rode and repeat. Once the bite is dead, we lift anchor 3-4m and start the drift again until we hit the bigger models. So "drift and drop".   

This technique evolved once I installed an anchor drum winch - prior to that I would not have considered it practical anchoring in waters 40-70m deep.

But experience has shown there is a down side to this technique. Once anchored you are an easy mark for schooling jackets. So if jackets are prevalent, the only alternative is to up anchor and drift with heavier weights hoping the drift is fast enough that the jackets can't be bothered chasing your bait. 

Regarding rigs, we tend to use a 2 hook paternoster rig and often change sinkers to make sure we have just enough to hit bottom - 4oz when anchored. Keep the rig moving and bouncing on the bottom. We have standardised on a 10cm SP on the top hook, bait on the middle and a bottom bouncing jig at the sinker. 

Here's a report where it all comes together:

Hope that helps.

Cheers Zoran

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On 8/10/2020 at 3:08 PM, zmk1962 said:

Hi Duncan, Yup I had trouble finding my old stuff as well - seems the search engines find stuff before 2014 and after 2019... but if I narrow a search then I can locate stuff from 2017, 18 etc.  Strange.

FYI

Zoran way back we had a hacking of the site and a complex site upgrade that removed lots of posts and disturbed things. Apologies if missing posts. 

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8 hours ago, mrsswordfisherman said:

FYI

Zoran way back we had a hacking of the site and a complex site upgrade that removed lots of posts and disturbed things. Apologies if missing posts. 

Hey Donna. Absolutely no need to apologize! The site is fantastic. I’ll bite my tongue regarding how I feel about hackers. 
I found that if I look at my profile and search for My posts it shows a subset. However if I play with the search filters and invert the search to show oldest post first many old posts show up that did not show up previously. I suspect the missing posts may still be there but the metadata associated with that post and used by the search engine may have been corrupted. 
This would also explain why Google finds some FR posts that our search engine doesn’t- google may have cached a previous search and has a direct link to the post. Anyway I’m sure a more IT literate person could make more sense of it. Perhaps there is a way to rescan/rebuild the metadata.

cheers Zoran 

 

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