Swansea Flathead

[Berleyguts]

My fishing club had its annual flathead day at Swansea yesterday, so my mate Mark and I left home at about 3:20am yesterday morning, got to Pelican ramp about 5. A bit earlier than we had planned. It was a bit dark navigating up into the creek to catch poddies. We had no luck getting poddies, so we headed for the channel below the bridge and did a couple of drifts, using plastics and bait - Mark had squid caught the day before and day old servo prawns and I had frozen bonito.

The only thing caught below the bridge was an occy by Mark in its jar!

We had more success drifting the channel from the lake down towards the bridge. Among the throw backs were a couple of grinners, small red bream and a couple of small flathead. We finished the day with 7 flathead from 39 - 50 cm. Mark doesn't eat flathead so I was happy to take them home - $35 a kilo in the shops!

Not much luck with the lures - all taken on bait. I had one flathead jump a couple of times which was exciting and I lost a nice one at the boat when the hook pulled. No big girls around that I heard of.

I did catch a strange oogly fish on a lazy plastic. Does anyone know what it is? I didn't want to touch it, so the photo's not so good. Something from the bullrout/stonefish family perhaps?

Anyway, had a great day on the water, but a long day away from home.

Cheers,

Baz

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Paikea]

Hard to tell without a clearer view of the head and body profile.

May be a Stargazer. EM Grant's Guide to Fishes describes them as follows:

This fish is a member of a group of heavy bodied bottom-dwelling fish with hard cubical-shaped heads bearing the eyes on the upper surface- as though, in fact the fish were stargazing. The mouth is pushed well to the front and is inclined upwards. The body is scaleless; the fish is a poor swimmer, but compensates for this lack of rapidity with which it can burrow into the sand or mud by energetic shovelling with the broad pectoral fins. Thus with only the eyes and rim of the mouth exposed, it lies in wait for its prey"

Hope this helps

Cheers

Paikea

[Berleyguts]

Hard to tell without a clearer view of the head and body profile.

May be a Stargazer. EM Grant's Guide to Fishes describes them as follows:

This fish is a member of a group of heavy bodied bottom-dwelling fish with hard cubical-shaped heads bearing the eyes on the upper surface- as though, in fact the fish were stargazing. The mouth is pushed well to the front and is inclined upwards. The body is scaleless; the fish is a poor swimmer, but compensates for this lack of rapidity with which it can burrow into the sand or mud by energetic shovelling with the broad pectoral fins. Thus with only the eyes and rim of the mouth exposed, it lies in wait for its prey"

Hope this helps

Cheers

Paikea

Thanks Paikea,

Yes. A stargazer, I think now. I just checked Grant's: "The Stargazer should never be despised as a table fish; it yields thick fillets of delicious white meat". Oh well!

Baz

[Flickn Mad]

An occy in a jar. That's funny.

[rockfisherman]

An occy in a jar. That's funny.

That basically their principle when looking for a home. It can be a jar, an old shoe or a witches hat, as long as they're protected from nibbling fish, it's all kosher for mr occy

Harry

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk