Plan A for Kingies 🙁 plan B - Flatties 👍👍👍

[Pickles]

Plan A was a daybreak run to Longie for some Kingies after filling the live bait tank with squid and Yakkas. reports  during the week suggested the first run of spring rats had arrived, which are always fun on light gear and my mates young bloke just turned 11 and wanted some Kingies -  but I think they all had a Flexi day as no boats seemed to get any outside and I spoke with quite a few fishos in the harbour, including some of the charter operators and only the odd rat was caught and live cuttlies and squid were being ignored - one of those days.

We decided to drift offshore at 35 m and hit a golden patch of blue spot and sand flatties. We boated 30 and keep 10 (between 2 families) in about 40 minutes - enough for a feed and getting out again in a few days, so no point keeping what is not eaten fresh. The wind sprang up about 11.30, so we headed inside and tried all the headlands, wrecks etc, but not a single king😞.

The weather was spectacular and the young bloke was stoked with the flatties, so a good day.

We were fishing with several rigs (Paternoster with 2 “J” hooks) and a 1/0 BKK circle on 12lb braid to 8lb leader with ball sinker sitting right on top of the hook. This second rig out fished the paternoster significantly. I also tried a soft plastic, but no luck at all. Bait that did the damage was strips of fresh Yakkas and slimies - plenty of schools of these off Longie at present (and sweep, as usual) and squid at most of the headlands.

I am hoping to get some coaching on catching flatties with plastics and lures soon - lots of fish in the sea and just as many lures - just need to know how to use them.
 

 

Edited August 29, 2020 by Pickles
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[Yowie]

Sounds like you all had fun, it's good to hit a patch of flatties rather than one every now and then. Might have been a patch of breeders, as some lately have had fat roes.

[Pickles]

They were mostly all males and around 40cm (perfect eating size) - I generally don’t keep the bigger females and if there are breeding females there are alway lots of boys nearby.

interestingly the water temp was only 16 degrees.

[zmk1962]

Great report and a top feast. Always pays to have backup plans!!
After picking up my FR stickers yesterday I thought I’d take a sticky beak at Ermington ramp - just to check out what’s being caught. Saw Al McGlashan by chance launching his boat and overheard him saying there's nothing going on offshore (Kings or Sambos) - he's never seen it like this.

cheers Zoran 

 

[Rebel]

Great report and a great day.

[dlvbw]

Well done mate - Plan B turns out to be pretty delicious!