Flathead theory or the ramblings of a madman?

[XD351]

G’day Raiders ,

By now you might have worked out that i like catching Flathead - bait or lures I don’t care and I particularly like the Hawkesbury system because it is a big system and within an hour from home where i can be looking at nothing more than water and trees- we are so lucky to have something like this on our doorstep !

Recently i have been trying a few theories to find flathead based on an area where i always seem to catch them - location zero on the first map , these theories differ from the traditional  way of finding flathead - ie find a sand or mud bank that is covered at high tide and uncovered at low tide then fish the drains on the last of the run out or drift the edge of the channel  . The need to work on these theories was established because spot zero produces flathead fairly reliably in the summer time and once i drift away from this area the catch rate drops to zero or the flathead are replaced by flounder . Looking at the first map and the fish icon you will notice a depression running parallel with the sore but it is only a few metres deeper than the surrounding area , so why do the flathead congregate there ? The answer came by surprise one day not long after the last floods , i arrived there on the last of the run in and set up but nothing was caught until the tide turned and started to run out and then this strange rubbish line appeared right where i was fishing and did so for the next few trips . I still didn’t cordon on to what was really happening at the time but by chance a few weeks later i was watching a show on fly fishing and host was explaining something called river craft and how he uses that to identify areas where trout will lie and watch for food , yep sure you have the classic  pressure point in front of a boulder ( same as a bridge pylon )and  the eddy behind but he explained about the spot where the current is forced to change direction at a sharp turn and the dead spot on the outside of the bend where the water smashes into the shore on the down current side of the bend  . Trout lay there waiting for food to drop out of the current where it meets this dead spot and this was what was happening at spot zero but on a much bigger scale and this is why the trash line forms there . The green circle is where i got my PB flattie a few years back and you will notice it is where two channels converge and where the current starts to push up unto the reef at flint and steel - i think there may be an underwater dead spot right on the bottom there as it also produces flathead fairly regularly .

I have tried this fish the trash line theory over the last few years and it seems to work , there is another trash eddy that forms in the mouth of cowan and this is my backup spot that i fish on the way back to the ramp .

Arrows show what i believe to be happening with the current and anything coming out of patonga creek gets dragged straight to point zero - maybe that is why Hawkesbury prawns work so well here ?

So on the picture below spots,2&3 are where i have been working of late and again the arrows show current flow as it is forced to the outside of the bend it flows over a mud bank and into the holes , and you don’t  drift along the shore so much but more like along and slowly in towards the bay there - flatties are sitting  right in the hole as do the mulloway that were there last time. 
spot 6 has produced consecutive 60cm + fish in the exact same spot , i think theynare sitting there in a dead spot caused by the mud bank and they seem to be in 4-5m of water .

The rest of the spots ( 1,4,5,7&8) are areas i want to try these theories out in the future and they are spots where I believe the current is either converging or being forced to change direction sharply 


The last photo is  just more spots to try this theory and i am keen on the ones in moony moony - that place just screams big flathead at me ! I have caught flathead at the three spots around Dangar before but they were sporadic and i think this dead water theory might help to change that .

 

So after all that madness what do you raiders think ? Any constructive thoughts and comments ? Have you fished any of these spots and done alright or not ? 
And no calling the loony bin on me ! If the guys in white coats turn in the middle of the night up with a straight jacket i will know it was you that called them 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤪🤪🤪

[Little_Flatty]

I think there's some sense to that Ian. Two out of three of my regular Meadowbank spots are sites of 'trash eddies'. Both are very consistent in summer and there is almost always a trash line. In the Parra, when you talk about 'trash' lines, the meaning of 'trash' is literal!

Fish will hang where the food is. Think about the Eastern Suburbs murks of old.🤮

[Isaac Ct]

Good sense to that, hopefully, you can put a few of these to the test this summer. Certainly let us know if the plans and ideas pay off. I think I will apply this to other waterways and it may also pay off. Lots of helps and an interesting read.

Cheers.

[wazatherfisherman]

Ian this is brilliant info, extremely well thought out and presented in an easy to understand format. Your scientific approach makes perfect sense to me and thanks for sharing this with us all- it will undoubtedly help many in looking for likely areas to try.

 

[XD351]

16 hours ago, Little_Flatty said:

I think there's some sense to that Ian. Two out of three of my regular Meadowbank spots are sites of 'trash eddies'. Both are very consistent in summer and there is almost always a trash line. In the Parra, when you talk about 'trash' lines, the meaning of 'trash' is literal!

Fish will hang where the food is. Think about the Eastern Suburbs murks of old.🤮

Thanks Mike ! I remember years ago we used to drift the edge of the channel near sow and pigs in Sydney harbour, the north head sewer outlet was still going and the water full of sewage . We caught lots of big flathead pretty much every weekend then they moved to the deep water outfall and the sewer disappeared taking with it the baitfish that ate it and the flathead that ate this bait . I have long held the opinion that fish are in an area for one or a combination of three reasons :

1 they are seeking cover from predators 

2 they are there because of a food source 

3 they are breeding 

The first two are the most important because a fish that is expending more energy than it consumes is slowly starving to death and a fish that has to leave its safety zone to feed will get eaten sooner or later .  The breeding is something that consumes them once a year and any urges for self preservation vanish - survival of the species - nothing else matters!

 

Edited September 20, 2023 by XD351

[XD351]

14 hours ago, Isaac Ct said:

Good sense to that, hopefully, you can put a few of these to the test this summer. Certainly let us know if the plans and ideas pay off. I think I will apply this to other waterways and it may also pay off. Lots of helps and an interesting read.

Cheers.

Thanks Isaac!

I plan to hit those spots hard over summer and I have also been eying off a few spots in Botany. 

[XD351]

11 hours ago, wazatherfisherman said:

Ian this is brilliant info, extremely well thought out and presented in an easy to understand format. Your scientific approach makes perfect sense to me and thanks for sharing this with us all- it will undoubtedly help many in looking for likely areas to try.

 

Thanks Waza!

All this is me trying to solve the 1m + flattie puzzle in the Hawkesbury and another thing I like about many of these spots is they are sort of out of the trawlers reach - even spot zero is close enough to the shore that the trawlers won’t run that close . It is also opening my eyes to the fact that even though I have been fishing this system for near on 45yrs , fished from Warragamba to BarrenJoey , most of Berowra , Pittwater and Cowan there are still places I have never been , like right up moony moony , mangrove  and mullet creeks . Fish or no fish - this season I’m determined not to fish spot zero until I get desperate for a feed of flathead 🤣🤣

Edited September 20, 2023 by XD351

[XD351]

Thanks for the award Donna ! Much appreciated!

[XD351]

Hope this picture shows what I mean with a dead spot against the shore where a current hits it , it was part of a drone video of a Canadian river and in the video I could see the current inversion where a fish could hold and expend very little energy and have its food delivered to it by the main current . They are both the same spot just different parts of the video , the top photo shows the area where the trash line would form in the Hawkesbury at point zero.

 

[campr]

Hi XD351.   Like you i am a big flatty trajic.  I have been lucky enough to have won abòut 20 ANSA inter club comps by specialising on chasing big flathead on 1kg pretest line.  I love lure fishing but livies are best for finding big flathead .  I like similar areas to you where a fast current suddenly slows after hitting deaper water. 

I have twice had metre + fish next to the boat and close to netting. One spat out the 40cm flathead that I  had hooked, and the other I lost when a faulty swivel pulled apart.  I don't fish the Hawksbury much but have caught two 80cm + fish on huge mullet while chasing mulloway.  My two PBs were identical 97cm fish caught 15 days and 100km apart.  

I don't think your any mader than me which may not be a good thing.  I think your on the right track but I would also consider trying well known mulloway spots as they are both top estuary predators and the big girls are eating the same prey. 

Good luck with your quest.  Ron 

[XD351]

Thanks Ron !

Wow! Big flatties on1kg - that would be sphincter clenching 🤣🤣

My PB was 87 at the spot marked by the green dot  and is literally a stones throw from one of the most famous mulloway spots in the Hawkesbury- flint and steel . It was caught on a bid dead squid ( was an old one I bought for catching leatherjackets ) it was my last bit of bait and I thought stuff it I will sew it on and maybe a decent mulloway might go it - it was on the bottom for maybe two minutes and it got smashed ! It was that fish that sort of focussed my mind on the flathead theory and also lead me to try jigging in the deeper water for flathead. I have had it in the back of my mind since then that to catch really big flathead I would need extra big baits and the bonus here is you are always in with a chance of a big mulloway!

Spot zero on my map is really my knife and fork spot and the flathead there are generally under 60cm. Thanks for the heads up with the mulloway/ big flathead link and I already have a few spots in mind to try - the eddy at Juno pt is one of them !

Once again thank you for the feedback and ideas Ron!

Ian.

 

[seasponge]

Great post Ian. A lot of those spots are already known spots, but your post gives good insight into why that might be. And more importantly, helps others think about what might be happening and how to find other spots. In a system like the Hawkesbury which is so big, finding the fish/spots seems to be my problem. I like to think i know how to fish. This post helps finding where to fish. 

[XD351]

I fished last Saturday and stayed east of the rail bridge - pretty much the northern and eastern sides of dangar island for 1 measly 42cm Flathead which came from of all places a trash line which formed at the northern end of the dangar flats on the east side of the island! Some more investigating of this area needs to be done.This only forms on the last of the run in . It was hard to gauge the situation because the little bit of rain we had made the river muddy and  the surface temps spiked at iirc 20.3c so up a good 2 deg from the week before . I really do need to build a temperature gauge that has a probe on a good 50m length of cable so I can check the temperature on the bottom. I don’t know , a bit of rain, temp rise  and about 5000 baits in the water over the first Week of school holidays may have spooked the fish. Highlight of the day was towing a boat back to the ramp because something had drained the battery - probably the minnkota . Rule #1 never use the start battery to run the lekkie- it always ends in tears 🤣🤣 It did make me dig out the old but still working jump starter unit I have in my 4wd and put it in my boat ( new and bigger one will go in the car ) - even though my motor is pull start and I won’t  need it I think it is something that all boat owners should consider having in their boat along with  a decent first aid kit - hope you never need it but great to have if someone else does .