Flathead Fishing Tips - Deep Water

By Bo Sawyer

One of my favourite ways to target flathead is fishing big plastics in the deep. It’s an awesome experience when you feel that almighty thump through your line and hook up to a monster. The average size of deeper dwelling fish is much greater than the ones on the shallow flats, which makes it an attractive way to target them, especially if you’re chasing quality over quantity.

Where?

All my fishing, using this technique, is in depths of 8-16 metres of water. This might seem shallow to offshore anglers, however in my local estuaries this is about as deep as you’re going to find. We want to target seaway entrances, river mouths, channels and deep holes that have structure and a good supply of bait. Banks that have coffee rock or mangrove edges, that are aligned with these spots, are dynamite.

Our eyes can’t see what’s happening down below, which is why a good quality sounder is extremely important. Not only do we want to sound up bait we also need to scan the bottom for fish holding structure. Physical structure isn’t as important in deep holes because the disruption of water movement is what draws in the fish. However, in other areas, it’s vital to have structure such as sharp drop offs, tree branches/stumps or rocks. The key here is that we don’t want to fish baron sandy bottoms, that don’t hold marine life.

Time and Tides

The best time to target flathead out deep is during their spawning periods in seaway entrances. This is when the big girls stack up in good numbers and you can have some unbelievable sessions. I’ll still catch them out deep during the rest of the year, however their numbers are greatly reduced. In terms of tides, I prefer one hour either side of the tide change, due to the strong currents that are associated with deeper water. High tide brings much needed clean water into my system and for this reason the best fishing comes around this part of the tide for me.

Technique

There are two ways we can fish the deep. We can either cast and retrieve the plastic back to the boat or tea bag it vertically.

Cast and retrieving is exactly as the name suggests. You can either drift while doing this or spot lock and work a particular area at a time. With bigger areas I prefer to drift and cover as much ground as possible. However, if there is a single piece of fish holding structure, I prefer to spot lock and work that exact spot more vigorously. The downside to the cast and retrieve method in fast flowing water is added snags as you’re working your plastic more horizontal to the bottom. This is the reason that ‘tea bagging’ can sometimes be a better option.

‘Tea bagging’ is a great technique to use if the area you’re fishing in is very snaggy, just be careful when googling the phrase. My mate Ryan from Capn’s Charters uses this method as well as anybody that I know, and the quality of the fish landed on his boat is top notch. We landed some very nice fish doing this in the Flathead Classic as well, eventually taking the event out for 2022.

What we are trying to achieve here is keeping the line vertical from the rod tip to the jighead. In doing this we eliminate a tonne of snags that we would catch with the cast and retrieve method. We want the jighead on the bottom and we want to maintain contact with it. From here we can hop our plastic or gently raise and drop our rod tip, followed by a pause to allow the plastic to hit the bottom again. Hold on to your rod as well because when they are feeding aggressively, they hit like a train!

Gear

My preferred rod is the TT Black Mamba 7’, 4-8kg which has a fast action. This helps me get a solid hook up and muscle the fish off the structure. In the reel department it’s hard to go past the Okuma Cedros 4000. These reels are built tough, and you can feel the quality the second you pick one up. For line I like the Platypus 20lb Pulse X8 Braid and either 20 or 30lb Stealth FC Leader. To be honest with you, I’m only using 30lb because it allows me to get most of my lures back from snags. The added benefit of fishing with 20-30lb gear is that when you hook up to a big jewfish you’ve got a much better chance of landing it.

Paddle tails are a great choice however some styles get fouled up on the hook in strong currents. The plastic of choice is the ZMan Scented PaddlerZ in the 5” size. The jointed body of this lure has the perfect action and for some reason it doesn’t foul up on the hook as much as other paddle tails.

Another plastic that I’ve been having a lot of success on is the ZMan 7” Scented Jerk ShadZ. This plastic is proving to be dynamite on big flathead and the by-catch of jewfish and snapper in estuaries is a welcome bonus. My favourite colours are Electric Chicken, Sexy Mullet, Pearl, and Gold Rush (in dirty water). Jigheads are very important and are heavily dependent on the tidal flow. I use 1/2oz and 1oz weights and this gets me out of trouble in most situations. If the water is really slack, then you can drop down to a 3/8oz. I use 5/0 hooks for the Scented PaddlerZ and 7/0 for the larger Scented Jerk ShadZ.

The deep water is a favourite of mine when it comes to chasing big flathead and it has accounted for some of my best fish. Good luck out there, I hope it’s not too long before you’re pulling up a monster from the deep. Tight lines.

Gearing Up:

TT Black Mamba Spin Rods – BMS701MH, 7’, 4-8kg.
Okuma Cedros Spin Reels – CJ-4000
Platypus Pulse X8 Braid – 20lb
Platypus Hard Armour FC Fluorocarbon Leader – 20-30lb

ZMan 5” Scented PaddlerZ
TT HeadlockZ HD Jigheads – 1/2oz – 1oz 5/0

ZMan 7” Scented Jerk ShadZ
TT HeadlockZ HD Jigheads – 1/2oz – 1oz 7/0