Well what winter?, we hit the water today for a 12.30 pm low tide, why the low tide?, because anywhere where you have large sand banks exposed at low tide you will find flat head lurking just off those banks, in deeper water the weed cant grow because of the light but next to these exposed banks you will get weed growth and at low tide the flathead like to sit along these banks in the 3-8 feet of water zone, our gear is 7ft pflueger 2-4 kg rods with 1500 and 2000 sized reels loaded with 3kg braid with 12lb leader, I use 1/4 oz jig heads in water over 8ft deep and 1/6 oz in water under this with a 3inch atomic prong plastic or squidgy fish, the plan of attack is to drift with tide 25 metres out from 3 foot zone and cast into that zone next to weed , when plastic hits bottom you just lift rod and give it 2 nudges and let it fall to bottom again, most of the time when a flat head takes the lure all you will feel is a tiny tap through the line, this means the fish has taken the lure and has settled to the bottom again, even though its mid winter here shorts and singlet was all you needed today..
We ended the day with a tally of 16 flathead, we only kept a couple as I believe you can only eat them once but if let go you can catch them many times, I had a bet with my wife for a 5$ scratchy on the biggest fish and I won, but I also lost a good fish that was well over 60cm but thems the breaks..
