Friday Flatties (off Broken Bay)

[dlvbw]

Hey Raiders, 

Headed out on Friday arvo with my best mate and @reel'em to target flatties offshore. There looked to be a nice weather window and thankfully the predictions were pretty much spot on. We launched at Bayview around 215pm and headed straight out to around the 50 m mark.

We were using a triple threat rig initially. Octo-jig as a sinker, bait (pillies to begin with) on the bottom hook and a plastic on the top hook. Unfortunately this didn't last long as the jigs couldn't keep us on the bottom for long enough with the breeze blowing. We changed these out for traditional sinkers and immediately started to hook up. What followed was a crazy good flattie session where we all boated some great fish. We essentially did the same drift 4 or 5 times and ended up keeping 13 fish between 40cm and 62cm (with 3 over 55cm). The amazing thing was that the two smallest fish we caught all day were around 38 cm. One went back and the other was stripped for fresh bait. We did not catch a single spiky or any other throwbacks. The quality of fish was pretty much perfect for the dinner table. 

Interestingly on the first couple of drops we caught some monster yakkas that were managing to foul hook themselves on the plastics and also a nice arrow - all on the bottom at 50m. A nice little bonus that will make great bait/dinner.

Rig note - prior to this trip I had been using paternosters with quite short lengths to each hook. I was sure this was resulting in dropped fish and less hook ups. I switched to Paul Worstelling's paternoster and used quite a long length on the bottom hook (i.e. longer than the length to the sinker). I feel this resulted in a much better hook up rate overall. Or maybe the fish were hungrier! We did catch one nice fish on the plastic but everything else on the bottom hook using bait. I was hoping to also try bouncing a kabura along the bottom but didn't have anything with enough weight to do this effectively and to be honest 3 lines in the water was probably enough......

Headed in just on dark to an empty Pittwater and a deserted ramp. Happy days and a great start to the weekend (particularly given the return to the rubbish weather!). 

Cheers

D

 

[kingie chaser]

Nice work 

 

Sounds like you need a drift chute/sea anchor.

[zmk1962]

Great report and photos @dlvbw !  Very good eating size flatties.  When the drift is running that fast and you want to stay connected to the bottom to target species like flatties then you basically have following choices ... go heavier (sinkers and rods), go sea anchor, go lock spot (either an electric or your outboard in reverse) or go deploy an anchor and swing on the rode. 

There's good flattie grounds off Barrenjoey for sure.

Cheers Zoran

[Rebel]

Great report. Super photos.

[GoingFishing]

Nice work mate. You got out and bagged a few fish with some mates. Cant ask for much more than that !

I have been advocating for quite some time now here on FR that bottom bashing with paternoster needs a longer distance between sinker and bottom hook. Glad to see someone trialing and giving it a go!

Edited November 1, 2020 by GoingFishing

[fish-aholic]

Hey D, I was waiting for You to write this report as you have better writing skills than me. And yeah you did a fantastic job here. I enjoyed every minute of that session, one of the best flatties session I ever had.
 

Look at that photo of me smiling ear to ear and going nuts to manage that bending rod. Man it was crazy. I should also mention about that rig, most of our fish were hooked on that bottom hook, we definitely had a good setup. Thanks to you mate.

Thanks again for taking me out and looking forward for our next fishing session.

cheers

MD

[Fab1]

Well done!

[DaveBM]

My great uncle pro fisho used to target snapper with short droppers on the paternoster, but for more picky fish eg KG whiting, he’d do heavy line to a heavy lead, then a really light, quite long leader to the hook. So the big sinker and swivel and heavy line are a good metre away from the hook.

Only disadvantage - you can’t really use more than one hook.

[Yowie]

2 hours ago, DaveBM said:

My great uncle pro fisho used to target snapper with short droppers on the paternoster, but for more picky fish eg KG whiting, he’d do heavy line to a heavy lead, then a really light, quite long leader to the hook. So the big sinker and swivel and heavy line are a good metre away from the hook.

Only disadvantage - you can’t really use more than one hook.

The long leader can help, unless you drift over a patch of reef or weed, then hook up on the bottom. More than one hook leads to tangles at times.

[Yowie]

4 hours ago, Reel’em said:

 

 I should also mention about that rig, most of our fish were hooked on that bottom hook, we definitely had a good setup.

MD

At times, I have hooked up on the top hook only,  nothing on the bottom hook of a double. The flatties will move up to take a bait, even following up a hooked fish well off the bottom and grabbing a bait.

[masterfisho7]

Well done looks like some top eating flathead 

[dlvbw]

Thanks for the comments/advice everyone. Much appreciated. I do use spot lock when it gets too windy but prefer to drift if possible. I am still trying to master setting a course using the minn kota in tricky conditions. I find I am always adjusting which distracts from catching fish. Need to do a bit more research on the best way to do that. Cheers D.