Parra River/ Lane Cove River

[kevvie]

Took a trip to the parra river in search of the humble flathead. After a quick search and destroy mission we had two in the well and released a couple undersize specimens. The wind picked up early and decided to head to the lane cove river in search of protection. We found a likely looking stretch and peppered it with everything soft and plastic we had for one keeper and a few undersize one's.. again. This set the trend for the day as we kept only three keepers and threw back in total 10 small flatskies. I have never had a day where the throwbacks outnumbered the keepers. Interesting stuff. Is it the time of year, the location or the lure that contributed to this? Who knows but i will find out soon.

Watch this space

[Jewhunter]

Thanks for the report Kevvie,

I fish up that way alot & can only say that it is the time of year. It has been the same for the last couple of years. Nov_ Dec when it warms up a bit should see some larger models around.

Cheers

[kevvie]

Thanks jewie man i thought so much about the time of year.. but i could be sure with only one try.

I use berkely almost exclusively... i tried a few other types in desperation and they did work. I change my fav colour almost on a daily basis. This goes to show one of two things. That the fish change thier preferences for colour often(maybe close to the prey item) or it's the colour i got on when it drifts past thier nose. To be honest i havn't got a conclusive opinion on this yet. My dad says luck of the draw but i think there might be more to it. Fluros work well in muddy conditions and natural or transparent colours in clear, with other colours covering all the variations in between. If i could only have one colour it would be pumkinseed.

I have used drop bear squidgys and they are effective. I have had success off the beach with em.. but nothing in enclosed waters yet. All the sqidgys will work on flathead but i find that power minnows catch a better variety of fish. I like the thoughts of being able to catch more than one species.

[macman]

absolutely agree with you on the point of minnows catching everything along with gulps... love em  i believe it is the quality scent that they use in the berkleys which attract everything to them rather than the actual colour.

i just find that the strike rate on the drop bears incredible with flatties but thats personal experience i suppose and to be honest i havent really caught much else on them

67735[/snapback]

I really want someone to do some trials with a painted dog turd on a hook for catching flatties, may have to try that one this summer

On a more serious note, Lane Cove does fish a lot better later in the year, the land based spots ( like fig tree) start to get fish lying on the flats.

I haven't fished it for a while, but I did find that you have to do a fair bit of searching in Lane Cove at times to find the fihs, and trolling is a good way to get a general idea before flogging the water.

Matt

Matt