Fishing deep off Dover Heights

[saltrix]

 

We went south today  off Dover Heights out about 4 miles in 60 meters, onto fish straight away, they were a very good size up to 60 cm. All blue spot flathead except for 1 tiger, never caught tigers before and not impressed with the black stomach lining.
The tailor was a strange catch in 60 metres. 
Saw a few whales well inshore and had to increase the sinker size above 1lb to keep the bottom.

Lost one good flathead to a shark, razor teeth marks and half missing.

Thanks to the gps we were able to go over the productive area and keep catching fish.

All the fish were caught on pilchards, either whole or half.

Once off the productive area things were quite so it was worthwhile marking where the fish were caught and going back to that area.

[jenno64]

That’s a great outing! Plenty of fillets and I bet the conditions were pretty friendly👌

[Pickles]

Well done @saltrix, a very nice bag of Flatties. It’s encouraging to find new grounds, hopefully they will be there next trip.

[Yowie]

Very nice, will make for plenty of fillets.

Nothing wrong with tiger flatties, I rate them slightly above the blue spots for the table.

I have also picked up a few tailor recently fishing around the 60 metre mark out from Port Hacking. A couple of months ago, fishing with Zoran, we pulled up a number of tailor from the 60 metre mark out from the Hawkesbury. All tailor were taken on dropper rigs fished on the bottom. Have never caught tailor that deep before, the previous deep ones were at 30 metres.

[Larkin]

Top catch of flathead! Looks like you found tte patch! 👍
 

[zmk1962]

Excellent catch. You’ll enjoy those !

cheers Zoran 

[Rebel]

Nice Flatties.

Great photos.

Top part of Sydney.

Well done.

[bessell1955]

Well done, a nice feed there! 

[big Neil]

Great session Saltrix. I'd love to be able to have a feed of yummy Flathead fillets. Hope that your new mark continues to produce for you. bn

[Marky mark]

Nice one, keen to start trying this sort of technique as the humble blue spot is one of the best on table I reckon! Do you use a 2 hook dropper rig and just sound around, I notice 50 - 60m seems to be a common sort of depth? Looking for anything in particular on the sounder regarding the bottom? Any tips appreciated thanks!

[saltrix]

We use  a 3  dropper rig wth pilchard on the bottom drop which is a 3 hook 4/0 joined gang. 
Most flathead are caught on that, but sometimes if the spikeys are thick a strip of squid on the single 3,/0 or 4/0 hooks last catch the bigger fish as the pickers are slow to get it off. A fillet of spikey sometimes gets a big fish.

 

Our method is to try a drift in an area and keep trying deeper and different sites until we get some fish, then mark the gps and go back over that area.  Make sure you hold the bottom as that is essential. Use a sea anchor to slow the drift if windy but keep moving.

if your sounder is good enough to pick the difference the area to try is the sand area between the rocks.

Hope this helps

Saltrix

 

 

 

 

[Marky mark]

Cheers mate, I find there is a lot of flat expanses out there but yes the sounder has colourline and is pretty good and hard vs soft bottom so that's helpful for sure!