A few blue spot flatties

[XD351]

G'day Raiders.

Fished yesterday off broken Bay and got a few blue spots, started out at 40m and there wasn't  much happening so went out to 50m of water and got a few on half pillies on a 2 hook patternoster rig - got bitten off a couple of times but not sure if it was green toads ( caught one at 40m mark) or leatheries . Came back into half tide rocks to do a few drifts on the last of the run in but didn't  do any good on pillies and hawkesbury prawns.

Oh well got a feed !

[zmk1962]

Can’t complain about that Ian. Great feed there …. The first flattie looks happy !

cheers Zoran 

[Isaac Ct]

Not a bad feed at all, well done.

[Yowie]

Nice bag of flatties.

Green toads are a nightmare where ever you are, and can be worse than jackets.

[jenno64]

Nice work! If they are smiling on the cleaning table surely the fillets will taste better:)

[Pickles]

Nice feed of Flatties Ian - great eating size. Well done.

[bessell1955]

That is more then a feed, it is a feast! 

[XD351]

10 hours ago, zmk1962 said:

Can’t complain about that Ian. Great feed there …. The first flattie looks happy !

cheers Zoran 

I can assure you that it wasn’t when it came over the side of the boat😂😂😂😂

Maybe something to do with brain spiking - I do it to all fish I’m going to keep , fast end of life for the fish and they don’t bruise themselves thrashing around in the esky .

9 hours ago, Yowie said:

Nice bag of flatties.

Green toads are a nightmare where ever you are, and can be worse than jackets.

It can get expensive when the bolt cutter brigade turns up in big numbers ! All you can do is move and hope to find a place they aren’t at !

Thanks all for the replies !

[Bryant fish]

Well done i cant even catch them lately

[XD351]

I usually don’t fish outside so this is really the first time I have targeted them . Checked the stomach contents on a couple of them , small squid and leather jackets so maybe try bottle squid for bait ? 

[Yowie]

1 hour ago, XD351 said:

I usually don’t fish outside so this is really the first time I have targeted them . Checked the stomach contents on a couple of them , small squid and leather jackets so maybe try bottle squid for bait ? 

The flatties outside eat whatever fits inside their mouths. Eels nearly as long as their body, small starfish, baby boxfish, small yakkas, red spot whiting, etc

[Larkin]

A couple of good feeds there XD! Worth the effort of going outside. 👍

I find salted fish strips work best - as soon as they hit the water you can see a waft of salty scent come off them. 
I did try occy leg once as it’s tough and doesn’t come off the hook easy - but not a bite.

@Yowie I find those eels all the time - I think they may be a type of garden eel - species that half sticks out of the sand.

[zmk1962]

My offshore flattie rig is a two hook paternoster, snapper lead and sinker jig at the bottom. Top hook has a 4-6in SP shad (preferably white, maybe this looks like an eel), middle hook half pillie (gets smashed by pickers so acts as burley), bottom sinker jig is an occy look-alike.  Experience has been that 2/3 of the catch is on the SP or jig. 
If I’ve got it right the link below will show 16 posts about my flattie set up 🤞…
https://community.deckee.com/search/?q="sinker jig"&updated_after=any&sortby=relevancy&search_and_or=or

Cheers Zoran 

[XD351]

You definitely put some thought and time into that rig! The jig connected to the sinker is something different! I had a patch of sewer following me around and this is when I started losing rigs so maybe a chunk of sewer stuck to my swivel on one drop and I lost everything 🤬 .

[Rebel]

Top haul.

Well done.

[zmk1962]

2 hours ago, XD351 said:

You definitely put some thought and time into that rig! The jig connected to the sinker is something different!

Yup came up with it after many offshore sessions and some experimentation … trying different SPs and rigging on the two hooks and tracking results … what I described above is the most consistent producer...  BTW the sinker jig can be connected to the sinker or just above sinker ... you basically want it in the cloud of sand/mud when the sinker bounces on the bottom. I think it looks like a little occy stirring up the sand. But as the many posts show, and the raiders that have been out with me will vouch ... it WORKS !   Tight lines.

Cheers Z

Edited March 13, 2023 by zmk1962

[Fab1]

20 hours ago, zmk1962 said:

Can’t complain about that Ian. Great feed there …. The first flattie looks happy !

cheers Zoran 

The one beside him must be his wife! She looks miserable.

[Fab1]

20 hours ago, XD351 said:

G'day Raiders.

Fished yesterday off broken Bay and got a few blue spots, started out at 40m and there wasn't  much happening so went out to 50m of water and got a few on half pillies on a 2 hook patternoster rig - got bitten off a couple of times but not sure if it was green toads ( caught one at 40m mark) or leatheries . Came back into half tide rocks to do a few drifts on the last of the run in but didn't  do any good on pillies and hawkesbury prawns.

Oh well got a feed !

I wouldn’t complain about a result like that.Well done mate.

[Yowie]

11 hours ago, XD351 said:

I usually don’t fish outside so this is really the first time I have targeted them . Checked the stomach contents on a couple of them , small squid and leather jackets so maybe try bottle squid for bait ? 

Several years ago in Bate Bay, bottom bashing for flatties, I hooked a yakka about 15cm long. I hooked it behind the head, dropped it back over and had a couple of hits almost straight away. Hauled up and there was a 28cm spikey flattie on the hook instead of the yakka. Greedy spikey.