Tackle Tactics » Tips-Techniques » Saltwater-Estuary » No Run, No Fun

No Run, No Fun

By Sean Bekkers

Or is there?  Many keen anglers are aware of the hot bite times that can improve the number and quality of fish caught. For example, snapper love an early morning / late afternoon bite and although they can still be caught at other times, the morning and arvo are universal hot bite time. So the question is, are there better times to target your local estuary species? The answer is yes. As I've discussed in previous articles the flathead hot bite time is often the last two hours down to low tide, as a lot of bait and fish are concentrated into a smaller amount of water.

What happens though when the tide doesn't have the dramatic drain out of water, for example a 1.2m high running down to a 0.5m low as opposed to a 2.4 running down to 0.2m? I can't speak for down south, however in south east Queensland I find these tides more difficult to fish as the bait doesn't need to move around as much and has the ability to remain up on the flats. In turn the feeding period is less focussed and the predatory fish have more time to assess what they are going to hit, instead of reacting to the first thing they see in the current flow. In a nutshell, the fish just seem to cruise and it can end up quite frustrating for the fisho, as Kaitlin and I experienced during our last session.

So, with an early morning bite session planned before the wind got up, we decided to do our usual milk run of spots in an attempt to land some flathead. These spots consist of flats and weed beds, draining into 3-7 metres of water and have produced quality fish in the past. Our usual flathead plastics consist of ZMan Slim SwimZ, 3" MinnowZ, 4" and 5" DieZel MinnowZ and 6" SwimmerZ, which may seem like a massive spread but let's face it, flathead have a big mouth and when they're fired up will hit just about anything.

As usual we proceeded to pepper the banks with plastics and while creeping along with the electric, we were amazed with the amount of bait just sitting out in the open. Apart from the occasional slurp form a bream off the surface, there was no real urgency from any of the fish. The tide only had a swing of 0.7m as opposed to the common 1.5 - 2.0m in our local waters. My first thoughts when seeing this amount of bait was, 'we are going to be into a hot session', however after a while this led to frustration as the fish were just in a cruisy mode, with soft tail grabs and half-hearted strikes.

An hour or so went by and I ended up tying on my new favourite, a Mepps Bug inline spinner. Within a few casts I was locked onto a solid bream, while Kailin on the other hand was being very patient, consistently working her plastic. Kaitlin was eventually rewarded with an awesome hook up from a mid-50's model flathead, which hit mid water column as Kaitlin was winding up. Although she played the fish really well, it still managed to throw the hooks at the boat and we had to watch as her hard earned efforts swam back to the bottom.

The wind decided to kick it up a couple of notches and we opted to hit another spot. The bank here drains into some deepish water, around 7 metres and although there wasn't much run (tidal movement) we still kept our 3/8oz TT Lures HeadlockZ jigheads on in an effort to work our lures effectively down the edge. Like before, we crept along the edge and worked the lures slow, ensuring we made contact with the bottom on each hop of the plastic. Once again, no convincing hits.

Now it's not like we were locked into our favourite lures or anything. The bottom of my boat was littered with ZMan plastics and jigheads, however we just hadn't cracked the code of the day. By now we had about 30 minutes left on the clock, before we had to go and in a last ditched effort we started to work the bank again, covering the same ground. This time though I opted for a ZMan 4" DieZel MinnowZ in Pearl colour and although we were working into deep water, I rigged this onto a 1/6oz TT Lures HeadlockZ jighead, with a generous lathering off Pro-Cure Super Gel scent.

I thought this presentation could imitate a small mullet, just cruising along the edge. I flicked it onto the dry edge and worked it slowly out, giving it plenty of hang time before hitting the bottom. BOOM, the unmistakable hook up of a solid flatty as it smashed the plastic and ran straight for the deep water. The fight was pretty awesome as the gear I was using was light and after a short amount of time Kaitlin had netted a 60cm fish for me. It's safe to say that I was stoked, although wondering was this luck?

On the second cast I did exactly the same thing and then landed a small flathead... nope not luck. I flicked another cast and handed it to Kailin to fish, so that I could rig her rod with the same plastic and jighead. After a few slow hops Kaitlin was locked onto a solid fish, in fact what seemed like a really solid fish. This thing played up big time, with huge long runs that had Kailin running from the front to the back of the boat a couple of times. After a few tense minutes she was rewarded with a chunky 61cm flathead.

There was nothing going to wipe the smile off here face. So, on a bank that appeared to have nothing on the first pass, we picked off two 60cm plus fish and some small ones in ten minutes. Although I think that rigging a plastic that imitated a mullet did help, I'm convinced it was the light jighead that gave the plastic a more natural swimming action and triggered the bite for us on this occasion.

In the past, from chatting with other anglers, I have heard their frustrations when it comes to landing quality fish when the tides don't have run and this is a frustration that I have shared on many occasions. The big take away from this session for me is to just to keep trying something new, until you crack a pattern. Try a different ZMan plastic, jighead or retrieve until you find something that works.

I hear time and time again people asking 'what's the right weight jighead' and the answer is there isn't one. It really does come down to experience and being able to identify what type of bait is likely to be holding in the area and how well you can represent it in the conditions that you are presented with. In our case, on the weekend, they were keen to hit relatively large, lightly weighted plastics and happy to come up off the bottom to get them.

Get a bend in it!

Sean

Gear List:
TT Lures HeadlockZ HD jigheads
ZMan 3" Slim SwimZ
ZMan 3" MinnowZ
ZMan 4" DieZel MinnowZ
Mepps Bug Inline Spinner
Pro-Cure Pilchard Super Gel Scent