Fishing Victoria Forum

As a last second decision, last night I set my alarm for 7am to do a bit of flathead fishing. The following morning the alarm goes off and before I knew it I was at the beach, it was perfectly calm one of the most beautiful mornings I’ve seen and yet not a single person was near me on the beach. So I paddle out to where I think is deep enough and start fishing. After the reel casualty from the last session I purchased a 1000 nasci for $110, and to be honest I think I prefer it to the stradic, it’s super smooth, light, and the drag makes a much nicer sound. Anyway, I’m soon into a few flathead all keepable size and my esky soon starts filling up. Surprisingly the flathead fought much harder than usual, it could be the water temperature I’m not entirely sure but it certainly made it more entertaining to bring them in. I’m more than satisfied catching plenty of flathead but my main ambition is to try and finally crack the 45cm mark which I have been so far unsuccessful, I’ve hooked and lost 50cm+ flathead just beside the kayak, I’ve watched people catch them right next to me and I’ve narrowly missed them with a spear but regardless of what I do I can’t seem to fulfil my endeavour. So I keep fishing and eventually hook something heavy, as I’m bringing it in it goes on many powerful runs and naturally I start questioning if this is the one. As it comes to the surface I realise it’s hooked around the gills, still no 45cm but it was still a respectable bluespot flathead at 43cm. I continue to fish and manage many more, by the end of the session I was letting fish under 32cm go back, in all the years of fishing here I’ve never seen such a good average size for sand flathead the majority were averaging 33cm to 37cm. I also caught pinkies, toadfish, and salmon plenty to keep me busy. I never did manage the big one but it was still a really awesome time, I don’t think I could ever tire of sessions like these, and I could certainly never tire of a good feed of flathead.
Cheers.

Nice work man, well done..

Mate, I'm jealous.
Well done

What did you use?

Smashing the flatties lately!
Another great session. Well done mate.
Cheers

Some of the bigger flathead I have caught have been at dusk while whiting fishing,towards end of a whiting session I will put down half /full pilchard straight down n often catch big flathead.
Probably cause of burly they come in.

bowl wrote: ↑

Thu Jan 21, 2021 9:57 pm

Some of the bigger flathead I have caught have been at dusk while whiting fishing,towards end of a whiting session I will put down half /full pilchard straight down n often catch big flathead.
Probably cause of burly they come in.

That’s very interesting, thanks for the tip mate. I’ll definitely give it a go next time I’m whiting fishing.

Sebb wrote: ↑

Thu Jan 21, 2021 8:41 pm

Mate, I'm jealous.
Well done

What did you use?

I was using Zman soft plastics in a range of colours with a 1/8oz jig head which accounted for about 70% of the keepers. The rest were caught using a strip of squid on a running sinker. Hope this helps.