4 minute read
Winter flathead fishing tips . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . by Keith Stratford
Chris ‘Squiddy’ O’Donoghue landed his first mangrove jack on a live herring. Ryan Holdsworth sight-casted this nice threadfin salmon on a Duo Realis Jerkbait.
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Small paddle tail plastics will work very well on a wide range of species in June. This mangrove jack belted one on a rock bar recently.
Winter flathead fishing tips
IT’S winter again!
Cold mornings, calm days and lots of fish should be on the cards this month.
The floods that hit southeast Queensland earlier this year gave the rivers and creeks a good flush out.
This has left them looking very good leading up to winter.
Plenty of flathead have been eating lures, especially around the mouth of the Pine River.
Most of the fish have been between 40-55cm.
I haven’t come across any bigger ones yet but they shouldn’t be too far away.
As the water cools, the quality and quantity will hopefully improve.
It’s been quite a few years since I’ve seen a good winter flatty season, so with any luck we have one this year.
The flatties that I’ve been catching at the mouth of the Pine River recently have been very fussy.
The type of lure and the retrieve have had to be exactly to their liking to get a bite.
Unfortunately, it hasn’t been the same on every trip, so experimenting with different angles and retrieves has been getting the results.
A lot of the baitfish I have been targeting around the area are small herring, so smaller paddle tails and vibes have been getting the bites.
I’ve also been using a lighter jig head than I normally would to get the bite – giving the action of the plastic a lot more time to work on the drop.
It’s worth carrying a wide range of plastics on each trip and trying each style several times.
And it’s also worth mixing up the retrieve.
Some days they favour an aggressive flick and other days they prefer it doing virtually nothing.
Dead sticking the plastic on the bottom and not moving it for about 10 seconds can produce surprising results.
I personally hate fishing this way, as I get bored easily, but it can work very well.
I used to fish a lot of clean shallow water at Bribie Island for flatties and the amount of fish that would follow the plastic all the way back to the boat and then turn away was an eye opener.
Every time we flicked the plastic, the fish would move closer but never eat it.
We quickly worked out that leaving it sitting there for five seconds
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Local Luring by KEITH STRATFORD
from P14 worked nearly every time.
The fish would slowly move over the top of the plastic while it was dead still and then suck it up.
Most times you wouldn’t feel the bite and the only way you knew the flatty had eaten the plastic was by watching the bright colour disappear.
Mangrove jack will be a bit slower this month.
They will still be available for catching though if you’re addicted to these red thugs.
I’ve caught plenty during winter as by-catch while chasing jewfish and threadfin salmon around deep holes and rock bars.
They are also very fond of small bream lures.
I used to chase bream a bit in the Caboolture River many moons ago and the number of mangrove jack that ate those small little plastics was a real surprise.
I quickly realised that casting around fallen timber for jack never ended very well.
Rock bars and steep shady banks were a lot easier to pull a jack out of than a crusty old tree with branches sticking out everywhere.
The past few years have seen heaps of trevally push up the local rivers.
Some of these fish have been stretching the tape to 70cm, which can be a handful.
The Pine and Caboolture rivers have been very consistent.
Trevally are a great target when jewies and threadies aren’t chewing.
There have been plenty of small jew getting around the rivers, which is a good sign for the next few years.
The Brisbane River is full of them at the moment and they should continue to bite well during June.
A few bigger fish should be around too, along with threadfin salmon and good numbers of snapper.
That’s it for me this month.
Grab the jumpers and beanies and get out there and enjoy the great winter fishery we have on our doorstep.
Hope to see you on the water.
Mangrove jack can turn up while chasing flathead around structure this month.
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