Flathead are one of the easier species of estuary fish to catch. Whilst they are more prolific in the warmer months there are still plenty around at Hook Up Time.
Whilst they love live baits such as prawns, small fish, and crabs they are also very comfortable targeting artificial baits such soft plastics, artificial flies and a wide range of hard bodied lures and vibes that they mistake for the real thing.
• Generally, flathead are most active when the tide is falling and on the ebb of the falling tide.
• If you want to increase your catch rate keep in mind that flathead are predominately ambush predators and generally follow the ebbing tide out and lay in wait, often partially covered with a dusting of sand, to target small fish, crustaceans including crabs and prawns, mollusks and worms to be flushed off the flats or from amongst mangrove roots and other edge structure in rivers and coastal shorelines into deeper water.
• Hot spots are those areas where the receding water concentrates food items so focus on areas such as gutters and channels that drain sand or mud banks and mangrove and vegetated edges of rivers and coastal areas.
• As the tide ebbs and the tides start to come in there will be less the concentration of the small fish, crustaceans including crabs and prawns, mollusks and worms that the flathead have been feeding on and the flathead will disperse making them harder to locate. At this time you will still find them laying in weight particularly in gutters and drop offs caused by the tidal run, along the edge of weed banks, and behind structure such as rocks and drowned timber.
• Whilst flathead generally feed as ambush predators during the day, they feed much more openly at night not only spending plenty of time as ambush predators but also when required foraging for food more widely. Prawns in particular but also small bait fish such as poddy mullet are often more active at night and flathead respond to that by comfortably feeding throughout the water column and even take targets from the surface particularly in shallow water.
It’s surprising how far up a flathead will come to take a bait but you will definitely catch more flathead if you get your baits right down on the bottom and scratching up little puffs of sand occasionally as the bait is stripped in.
Do keep in mind that flathead have very sharp spines on the edge of gills and along their back so handle them carefully.