Flathead fun up Tilligerry Creek

[Max Power]

G’day everyone, this is a report from Saturday last weekend (29-10-22).

Originally my mate CJ and myself had planned to leave Little Beach at around 6am to head out around the reefs south of the heads, chasing Snapper. The weather had other ideas and tricked us and the forecasters!

The Westerly wind was much stronger than the forecast and so a change of  plan was in order.

We instead decided to tow the boat to Lemon tree Passage and launch from there, later in the day, to chase Flatheads up Tilligerry Creek on the falling tide.

This turned out to be a great decision!!

We had the boat on the water by around 2.30 pm and headed up the creek, stopping along the way to check out some likely Bream holding spots while the tide was still high. No results on that front and so we motored a bit further up the creek looking for some flats that were draining into deeper channels in the hope that our target quarry, Mr Flathead, would be lurking in the deeper water awaiting the bait to come off the flats as the water receded.

The Westerly was still howling and we mainly focused on the Western side of the creek to try and stay out of it a bit. I had noticed that the barometer had changed from 1006 to 1004 a bit earlier in the day and it was only a few day after the new moon. What effect  this, combined with the wind had, I’m not sure, but things were about to get interesting!

As we worked our way up the creek, trying to avoid the wind and oyster racks, I saw a likely looking spot. Trouble was it was on the Eastern side and the wind was still blowing hard. “Let’s have a crack at that”, I said to CJ, “it looks fishy!”. With a little convincing ( we were in his boat haha), we headed over to the spot. 
I cast out  a paddle tail in “Midnight Oil” and CJ had a line out with a prawn on one hook and a Pillie tail on the other hook. I had no luck on the plastic and CJ managed a small Squire on the prawn. It was getting close to 5pm by now and agreed to have another few casts and then make our way back towards the boat ramp and trying any likely spots along the way.

Well that’s about when the “magic” happened!

CJ had put on a hardbody minnow type lure and I had changed to a curly tail grub. All of a sudden he yells out “I’m on!” After a small tussle, over the side comes a beautiful 52 cm flattie.

You little ripper! There’s his dinner sorted! His next cast he hooks up to another (estimated) 50cm plus fish but it throws the hooks at the boat. Doh! I still wasn’t having any luck with the plastic and so I changed lures to a 12cm minnow type hard body as well.
 

A couple of casts and yeeha I was on! A beautiful 63cm flattie (equal PB) was on the deck! As I hadn’t caught any flathead for a while, and had released my last PB I decided to keep this one.
 

It was CJ’s turn next with a nice 55cm specimen going into the ice box.

 

I then proceeded to land a 54cm flattie and that went into the ice box for Mrs Power’s grandparents.

It was a hectic hour of action and between us we landed/kept, lost at the boat, released 9 flathead! None were estimated to be under 50cm long and all from the same spot (we were anchored as the electric motor didn’t like spot lock in the wind). All on hard bodies and only casting to one side of the boat with the wind at our back! 
With 2 nice fish each we made the call to leave the fish biting and head back to the ramp to clean our catch.

 

This was one of those fishing trips  that will stick in my mind for a long time. I’ve never seen such a concentration of big Flathead in such a small area and I think it’s a great sign that our estuary here at Port Stephens is in great shape. I hope that’s the case anyway.

Another interesting point was that out of the 4 fish kept, the largest fish was a male, the next biggest a female and the other 2 were male as well. One of the fish hooked (and lost) had actually straightened the hook on CJ’s lure and I have no doubt it would have been the biggest of the day!

 

As mentioned before, the smaller of the 2 fish I kept went to Mrs Power’s elderly  grandparents and was thoroughly enjoyed.

CJ also kept one fish and gave the other one to his very grateful neighbours.

The larger one I filleted and skinned and made up a seasoned flour with salt, cracked pepper, a little cayenne pepper and some garlic powder. I dusted the 7 pieces from 1 fillet in the flour and shallow fried them. Absolutely sensational was our verdict and I still have the other fillet cryovaced in the freezer to enjoy down the track.

All in all it was a great afternoon out on the water (in spite of the howling wind) and one that may take a while to repeat. I hope I haven’t bored everyone with my long winded post but it had been a while since I posted so I’m just making up for that hahaha!!

Hope everyone is having a great weekend and hope to see some of you out on the water one day.

Cheers and beers 😎   🍻

 

 

 

 

[Yowie]

A great day out.

I would say the flatties were gathered for a bit of breeding to happen amongst them.

[Isaac Ct]

Nice bag of fish mate, well done.

Lovely photos and a nice looking meal.

[Pickles]

A great report @Max Powerand a nice feed of Flatties. Yowie hit the nail on the head for this time of year -  if they are all about the same size around 35-45, probably males lining up to say “gooday” to a big female that was down there somewhere. When snorkelling, I’ve often seen 8-10 males all in a very small area and often laying on top of one another and a big female amongst them.

[Max Power]

2 hours ago, Yowie said:

A great day out.

I would say the flatties were gathered for a bit of breeding to happen amongst them.

It sure was @Yowie!

You could well be right mate!

1 hour ago, Isaac Ct said:

Nice bag of fish mate, well done.

Lovely photos and a nice looking meal.

Thank you @Isaac Ct, it was a very tasty feed.

 

50 minutes ago, Pickles said:

A great report @Max Powerand a nice feed of Flatties. Yowie hit the nail on the head for this time of year -  if they are all about the same size around 35-45, probably males lining up to say “gooday” to a big female that was down there somewhere. When snorkelling, I’ve often seen 8-10 males all in a very small area and often laying on top of one another and a big female amongst them.

Thanks @Pickles it was an awesome feed!

I reckon you and Yowie are on the money re breeding and they were all between 50cm and 63cm long. At least the ones we measured were anyway.

Whatever the reason, they were bloody hungry haha 😂 

[Little_Flatty]

Great job Max. Those 50-60cm flatties are a great size for eating. I've fed my family of four on just one fish in the past.

[Larkin]

Well done Max! Great haul 👍

it’s coming on dinner time and your making me hungry!

 

[bessell1955]

What a great result and an even better meal 

[Rebel]

Top report.

Nice flatties. Great photos.

Well done.

[Max Power]

20 hours ago, Little_Flatty said:

Great job Max. Those 50-60cm flatties are a great size for eating. I've fed my family of four on just one fish in the past.

Thanks @Little_Flatty, you’re not wrong there! There is a lot of meat on them and even the “wings” had a good piece on each. 

19 hours ago, Larkin said:

Well done Max! Great haul 👍

it’s coming on dinner time and your making me hungry!

 

Cheers @Larkin, it’s hard to beat fresh flattie fillets!

8 hours ago, bessell1955 said:

What a great result and an even better meal 

Thanks a lot @bessell1955 I agree on both counts  👍

4 hours ago, Rebel said:

Top report.

Nice flatties. Great photos.

Well done.

Thanks heaps @Rebel I was stoked with that afternoon’s fishing!

[Bowler Bob]

Nice report @Max Powerand nice feed, it gives me some confidence to head back up Tilligerry as I hadn't had much luck in the few times I've ventured up there since the new boat arrived a few months back. Don't worry, it say's more about me than the area, I'm pretty much a novice. I've managed to get a good feed of flatties just fishing plastics on the flats around to the right from the Soldiers Pt ramp over the past fortnight, but need to further my horizons.

My biggest problem is identifying spots which may hold fish, but it's something I'm sure I will learn in due course.

Cheers - BB

[Max Power]

On 11/8/2022 at 6:41 AM, Bowler Bob said:

Nice report @Max Powerand nice feed, it gives me some confidence to head back up Tilligerry as I hadn't had much luck in the few times I've ventured up there since the new boat arrived a few months back. Don't worry, it say's more about me than the area, I'm pretty much a novice. I've managed to get a good feed of flatties just fishing plastics on the flats around to the right from the Soldiers Pt ramp over the past fortnight, but need to further my horizons.

My biggest problem is identifying spots which may hold fish, but it's something I'm sure I will learn in due course.

Cheers - BB

G’day BB and thank you for your compliments. Well done on the flats fishing and that should only fire up more as the days and water gets warmer.

Im far from an expert when it comes to finding flathead, but I can give you a few tips that have worked quite well for me.

 I find that visiting areas you might like to fish on low tide and have a good look around at the exposed land and gutters, channels etc. See if you can see any “lays” (where the flatties have been lying on high tide) and make a plan to come back and have a fish there when they are covered in water. Also if you are in your boat, look for flats that are draining into deeper channels, which in turn forces any bait to be pushed back with the water. The flathead will sit in these areas during the run out tide and wait for their dinner to come to them.

Also, don’t be afraid to mix up what you are offering them. The trip in this post was a classic example. I peppered the area with soft plastics for zilch but when my mate threw a hard body in the same area, he was on first or second cast. I also swapped to a HB and the end result spoke for itself.

Anyway mate, I hope these few tips help you out and I look forward to seeing a flathead filled report soon!

Cheers, MP.