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The School Holiday Experiment

By Sean Bekkers

Flathead is one of my all-time favourite estuary fish to catch and I'm not the only one. The humble flathead is targeted over and over and over again by heaps of keen anglers and authors alike and if you read any article related to targeting flathead you'll find that soft plastics are probably the most common artificial thrown in the hope of landing a monster. This is closely followed by hard bodied divers and probably stick baits in an attempt to get a surface strike. Now I'm a sucker for throwing the proven patterns and colours, easily falling victim to using only my favourites, so to help break up the norm I use the school holidays as a time to experiment with new techniques or different presentations to land fish while everyone is one the water.

School holidays are made for kids and parents to enjoy the water and more importantly fishing, however with a huge influx of people enjoying the waterways the pressure soon adds up, for not only the fish but the angler as well. Now, the last two hours of the run down to low tide is hands down the best time to target flathead and one I've harped on about in previous articles, however don't be fool by this claim as quality eating and trophy fish can be caught in ankle deep water on the high tide as well. During the busy time of school and public holidays, this is usually where you'll find me. Fishing up on the flats, miles away from people, lol.

The main reason that I sit up on the flats is that quality fish can be caught there. For sure they are spread out further and you'll need to cover more ground to find them, however slow rolling a ZMan 3" MinnowZ or Slim SwimZ pattern, rigged on a 1/4oz TT Lures HeadlockZ Finesse or HD  jighead will get the bite. If rolling back into a deep drop off, adding a pause on the drop will bring rewards, producing a mixed bag of species including flathead and the little jewfish that I broke my new Okuma Helios SX spin rod in on.

Hot Tip: Use light leaders when in the skinny water as this will improve your bite rate. Now MinnowZ are a great pattern, however I can't help but throw a ZMan 2.75" Finesse FrogZ in the skinny water and for a couple of reasons. They can be rigged as a surface or sub surface presentation, they give off heaps of movement with the double legs, are awesome to rig weedless on a TT Lures SnakelockZ jighead and flathead just can't help themselves... they love smashing them! Unfortunately these have now fallen into my normal presentation kit for skinny water flathead fishing, so this holiday I wanted to try something different.

I honestly believe that in high pressure time, like school holidays, the fish just get sick of seeing the same presentation thrown in their face by thousands of anglers. Don't get me wrong, they still work with some persistence, however I like trying something out of the ordinary and fingers crossed something that will trigger a bite because it's new and exciting.

So these holidays I have been experimenting with some Mepps inline spinners. Now, before you choke down off your coffee, hear me out. I've been reading about Tackle Tactics Pro Angler Adrian (meppstas) Webb catching plenty of trout down in Tassie on the Mepps spinners and it's no secret that Mepps spinners are proven freshwater lures... but could I take this freshwater lure and nail my local flathead with it?

Working my way through the Tackle Tactics page looking at all the different styles and I found out that Mepps has been around since 1938, so I don't think for a second that I'm the only person to try throwing a Mepps at a flathead or in the saltwater. Regardless, there are plenty of cool styles and sizes of Mepps that I could have chosen, however the Bug was the one that stood out. It comes in a few colours and sizes and, to be perfectly honest with you, I liked that the blade resembled a wing. I chose a #1 (4 gram) as I needed a little weight for casting distance and while not wanting it to sink too fast in the shallows. In terms of colour, I selected Olive (green) and Cherry (red). I was hoping that the Olive would imitate the small hardy head that can be seen swimming along the weed bank edges.

Testing Day

I decided to head to a spot that had quite shallow weed banks, rolling into a small one metre drop off. Pretty simple. For the testing side of things I decided to flick a ZMan 3" Slim SwimZ and an Olive Mepps Bug. For the first half hour or so I experimented with the retrieve speed, pausing and some occasional hops, just to see how the Mepps lure would work. Being small and light meant that I could keep it rolling at a reasonably slow speed across the weed. Action wise in the water it's awesome and even at slow speeds the blade gives off a tonne of vibration and shimmer. As always I added a little Pro-Cure to the body and inside of the blade to better my chances.

By the end of the first hour I was getting some interest, a few knocks here and there and I could see some really small bream chasing. This gave me some confidence that I could pull some fish using the Mepps. I threw the Slimmy around for a while and got the same couple of knocks here and there but no fish. It was around 1pm and the sun was high and I put the non-committal hits down to this. Back to Meppsing and working my way down the bank I decided to throw up into the skinny, rolled it to the edge and this time I paused at the drop. I'm sure the Bug must have imitated a small baitfish being injured... before it was smacked! Now it wasn't an overly big fish, however it was good fun on my 1-3kg setup and on a new lure I landed a new species! A small grunter, a first for me surprisingly as for years I have fished waters where this species resides, was happy to smack the Mepps Bug and with that, the monkey was off my back.

After this I started heading home as it was just a short session and I had other plans on the cards. On the way in to the boat ramp I could see a small amount of baitfish flicking right on the edge of the weed bank... and that was enough incentive for me! I snuck into casting distance with the electric and flicked the Bug in to the edge. The first two retrieves came back with nothing but weed on the hooks. The water was only just covering the weed, no more than 15cm and this is exactly where I placed my Bug. I managed one quick crank before I got snagged... no not a snag a mid-40's flathead had inhaled the Bug!

As I wrestled it towards the boat I could see the flathead's teeth rubbing on the leader, so there was no mistaking that the flathead wanted it. Sitting back in the boat I was pretty stoked with my result; a new fish to my list of catches and I caught my intended target on a lure style that has been around for years and just doesn't get the attention of other lures. I'm sure that as I explore the range more, Mepps will soon be a constant in my estuary arsenal and with a bit more experimenting with the retrieves and patterns I'm sure I can nail some trophy size fish.

Think outside the box, screaming drags.

Sean Bekkers

Tackle Used:

ZMan 3" MinnowZ
ZMan 3" Slim SwimZ
ZMan 2.75" Finesse FrogZ

TT Lures HeadlockZ Finesse jigheads
TT Lures HeadlockZ HD jigheads
TT Lures SnakelockZ jigheads

Mepps Bug - #1 (4g) in Olive and Cherry

Platypus P8 Braid - 8lb

Helios SX Spin Rods - HSX-S-702L 1-3kg
Helios SX Spinning Reel - HSX-30