Shallow water flattys

[Funchy]

Go my last chance for a fish on Sunday before I headed back to the grind after a great 24 day break over xmas. Up at 4am. I loaded up the yak and I was on the water paddling half an hour later. It took me about half an hour to paddle to one of my usual haunts I like for chasing flattys. I was rigged up with the usual 6lb nanofil, 8lb flouro carbon leader, 1/8th oz jighead and I had a Gulp 3 inch curl tail grub on. The fires from Straddie and over cast conditions made for some good cover for the bait fish and they were very active in the shallows. Also there was an unusually high amount of birds working over the herring in the shallows so that’s exactly where I headed.


The tide had about an hour and a half of run left in it. As you can see by the paddle picture I was fishing in about 20-40cms of water. The flattys were all sitting in ambush just off the weed beds and yabby banks waiting for the bait to flee the ever decreasing shallows. This is one of the great advantages of a yak. Many would be surprised with the amount of good fish sitting in such shallow waters. Also there was a fair bit of weed about. If you can persist and have patience with working the weed it will pay off. When I feel my jighead snagging up on weed I just gently work the rod tip to coax the placcy out. This creates its own under water commotion that attracts fish. When your plastic works its way free of the weed it darts out into an open bit of water and many times there are flattys just waiting for them. (This is exactly how I got my best flatty of 85cms).

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There was a reasonable run in the tide and the next hour saw me put 8 flattys in the yak. I also dropped a couple. I was also getting constant taps and interest shown in my offerings. Once the tide slowed and eventually bottomed out things slowed until it turned and began to run again. Once there was good flow the bite came back on and I landed another 5 flattys. I left my spot about 9 am with them still biting. I paddled the 30mins back to the beach loaded the yak onto the trolley and the old golf cart plastic wheels promptly collapsed and I had to drag the yak the couple of hundred meters to the car……. Oh well, a small price to pay for a great morning on the water.

I kept my bag of flattys this day as I was catering for dinner at a friend’s place. They went down a treat in egg and bread crumbs. Some was also pan fried in butter and lemon pepper!
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