One drift - triple bag out

[GoingFishing]

Headed out today with dad and one his mates to fish the northern beaches.

Conditions in the morning were perfect and water temp at the heads was just over 20 degrees.

well the water quality has certainly improved over the last few weeks with the water now more blue than green and alot clearer.

The direction of the wind put us on a southerly directed drift which was more or less parallel with the coastline.

We got to our usual drift off manly and, in the one drift that went for 1.5km had all three of us bagged out on flathead ! It was the perfect drift. We must have thrown back twice as many undersize or slightly legal fish (only taking over 38cm) so am absolutely amazed at how many flathead were spread over such a large area.  The southward drift had us drifting perfectly between the reef and the weed beds. 

Also landed two flounder around 30cm.

Dads mate started turning green so we headed back in for some site seeing with me playing tour guide/photographer for the rest of the afternoon, great day to be on the water and there was plenty of people out and about. 

Trolled from bluefish to north head, plenty on the sounder but no strikes. Water temp around midday has rose to 21.6

We passed by two blokes in a small tinny and noticed their bilge pump was working overtime pumping water out the side of the boat. Zipped over to see if they needed any assistance and they just looked at the water coming out, smiled at me and motored off without saying a word ??. 

I hung around them for another 15-20 minutes incase they got into trouble but all seemed ok so eventually left them behind. 

Didnt get a chance to anchor up and burley for snapper and other ooglies today but it was a good day nonetheless.

the flathead have moved into shallower water and for anyone whos wanting to target them please feel free to PM me for some more details on where to target them.

I hope everybody else had some luck today.

thanks for reading

Edited May 6, 2017 by GoingFishing

[Yowie]

A feed of ocean caught flatties is hard to beat, good work there. Flounder are a bonus.

[big Neil]

Great report mate. Excellent result too. Very generous of you to share valued info with others, too Cheers, Neil

[jdanger]

A double hookup normally has me stoked, can't complain with a triple bag out. Well done!

[letsgocrabbing]

Were the flathead full of row? Were they in around the mid 40's depth? Have found in the past similar results based on these two pointers

 

[GoingFishing]

15 hours ago, Yowie said:

A feed of ocean caught flatties is hard to beat, good work there. Flounder are a bonus.

Your not wrong Yowie...  definitely my favourite eating fish. 

14 hours ago, big Neil said:

Great report mate. Excellent result too. Very generous of you to share valued info with others, too Cheers, Neil

Thanks BN, happy to share with the FR community 

14 hours ago, jdanger said:

A double hookup normally has me stoked, can't complain with a triple bag out. Well done!

Thanks mate. They were coming up two at a time at one stage yesterday and on a couple of occasions had a third chase the other two up to the side of the boat then swim back down !! Unbelievable 

4 hours ago, letsgocrabbing said:

Were the flathead full of row? Were they in around the mid 40's depth? Have found in the past similar results based on these two pointers

 

Hi mate yes most of the larger models filled with roe and in shallower water 30m+

[JohnDory]

Nice read

Thanks

[undy]

Nice catch Goingfishing and good on you for looking out for a fellow boater's welfare! A nice thing to hear in this day and age.

[sydney south]

Good work.

[PlayerOne]

Nice report!

You guys did much better than we did on Saturday! We did a heap of drifts inside the heads for a heap of undersized flatties (all released of course) and few flounder! 

[Penguin]

Great bag of tasty fish there.

 

Cheers

[josamill]

Outstanding catch and feed!

I fish out of Broken Bay and my sounder is busted.......how far out do you reckon? Is this the main time of year they are active out there, or are they around most of the year? We tried last year in about 50M and caught 1 x tiny one.

Cheers

[finin]

Great feed of flatties there Goingfishing. We had the same problem as you on Sunday lol. In answer to your worry on seeing a bilge pump working OT lol. They would of been running a live bait tank and were probably laughing as you had no idea.

[GoingFishing]

On 07/05/2017 at 3:56 PM, JohnDory said:

Nice read

Thanks

 Cheers mate

On 07/05/2017 at 5:58 PM, undy said:

Nice catch Goingfishing and good on you for looking out for a fellow boater's welfare! A nice thing to hear in this day and age.

Thanks mate, the amount of reckless people out there is worrying. Sad thing is some innocent bloke with a family of his own has to risk his life to go save them!

6 hours ago, sydney south said:

Good work.

Cheers

4 hours ago, PlayerOne said:

Nice report!

You guys did much better than we did on Saturday! We did a heap of drifts inside the heads for a heap of undersized flatties (all released of course) and few flounder! 

Where abouts were u fishing ? 

If u head out slightly further (assuming your boat is capable and you have all the required safety gear and training) u will find that in the right conditions the chop dies down significantly and the drift can be surprisingly comfortable. The swell bounces off the cliffs and collides with itself which is why it always uncomfortable around the heads

4 hours ago, Penguin said:

Great bag of tasty fish there.

 

Cheers

Nothing better than a feed of flathead fillets in my opinion ! Cheers

3 hours ago, josamill said:

Outstanding catch and feed!

I fish out of Broken Bay and my sounder is busted.......how far out do you reckon? Is this the main time of year they are active out there, or are they around most of the year? We tried last year in about 50M and caught 1 x tiny one.

Cheers

Im not very familiar with broken bay so cant really answer with certainty but you want to be starting in the 30m mark. Id say between 2km and 3km out so not very far at all. Im no expert but it seems as though most of the flathead have come into shallower water to spawn. That being said i do have relative success year round in these locations, theyre just not as prolific as they have been for the past month

1 hour ago, finin said:

Great feed of flatties there Goingfishing. We had the same problem as you on Sunday lol. In answer to your worry on seeing a bilge pump working OT lol. They would of been running a live bait tank and were probably laughing as you had no idea.

Thanks Finin.... did u get any mate? By problem do u mean people turning green haha

wel that explains the bilge pumping out water iv never seen a live tank setup like that thanks for the info.... u can imagine my confusion on the day !!!

Edited May 8, 2017 by GoingFishing

[cogo44]

A week earlier, the flatties were in numbers off Curl Curl but the sizes of the fish caught were modest.

[finin]

Goingfishing, same problem was flatty city?. You will always find them this time of year in and around that depth,  between 30 -50M,if you are struggling with the little ones always move in or out 10M in depth till you find them. They have been in roe now for a few weeks, the next full moon should see them do their business and then they will move out, they breed from what ive observed and written down 3 x a year. The weirdest thing was out of our collection of fish we puled a dusky, never in 35yrs have i ever caught one outside the heads.

 Lol always pays to think things through before tearing off and trying to help someone who doesnt need it! ??

[ARC H]

nice catch !

[GoingFishing]

3 hours ago, cogo44 said:

A week earlier, the flatties were in numbers off Curl Curl but the sizes of the fish caught were modest.

Iv tried curl curl a number of times but never had any real success and as u mentioned always the small tiddlers. I did recently try a mark i had heard of titled "curl curl wide" for snapper but didnt find any takers.

52 minutes ago, finin said:

Goingfishing, same problem was flatty city?. You will always find them this time of year in and around that depth,  between 30 -50M,if you are struggling with the little ones always move in or out 10M in depth till you find them. They have been in roe now for a few weeks, the next full moon should see them do their business and then they will move out, they breed from what ive observed and written down 3 x a year. The weirdest thing was out of our collection of fish we puled a dusky, never in 35yrs have i ever caught one outside the heads.

 Lol always pays to think things through before tearing off and trying to help someone who doesnt need it! ??

Haha I wouldn't say flatties are a problem theyre my favourite target species ?

When im drifting for flathead on a new drift if i havent had a strike in 10 minutes i will normally move locations. In my (limited) experience If you havent had a strike in 10mins theyre usually not in the area. I move 200-300m north then 200-300m south and if still no takers il go out deeper as u mentioned and keep repeating until i find them. Sometimes il change locations completey from say Manly to infront of the lighthouse in Watsons. I always start at the 30m mark even when theyre not spawning. Its hard work making so many moves so quickly but when u do finally find them you can get a feed usually quite quickly.

Dusky outside the heads that is amazing.... i have encountered them off the beach when beach fishing but never in water deeper than say 8m

10 minutes ago, ARC H said:

nice catch !

Cheers

[Soulman]

Great report, great tasting fish...

[Yowie]

On ‎9‎/‎05‎/‎2017 at 6:40 PM, GoingFishing said:

 

Dusky outside the heads that is amazing.... i have encountered them off the beach when beach fishing but never in water deeper than say 8m

Cheers

My neighbour was fishing south of The Hump a few weeks ago, in 120 feet of water he said, and his son pulled up a 68cm dusky. Did not release it as it was not looking too good after coming up from that depth, so he kept it.