Releasing big flathead

[jonboy]

At what size do you reckon you should release a flathead? 60cm, 70cm...

[Noelm]

I guess it all comes down to state regs, and your own views on what you want to keep to eat and what you don't

[Funchy]

Just my opinion but I let anything go from 70cm up. If I have some fish I let go any in the 60's too. Read a report that a shiteload where caught for scientific purposes and they sexed and aged the fish. The largest male fish was 68cms if I recall and prolly about 14yrs old so chances are the big ones are females.

Once again my opinion only :D

[GBC]

Big ones go flaky and taste like crap anyway. The ones closer to the smaller slot size are the best eating by far.

[tunaticer]

P release flathead outside of my window of 55 to 70cm. It is all about getting a decent yeild per fish to me. I can not see the point in bagging out on just legals and killing 4 times the number of fish for the same result. I generally only keep one or two per trip.

[Apollo]

I don't keep anything over 60 anymore. Had too many in the earlier days that were over 60 and roed up, so placed a self imposed max of 60.

[Si]

most female fish are not sexually mature until mid to high fifities. quite often those 40's and low 50's female fish we take for home for a beautiful dinner have not had a chance to breed at least once in their life....yet we have a good tendancy to let the larger fish go who most have had a chance to breed. This may offset the loss of not sexually mature fish. something to think about anyway.

[Bronson]

Ill only take Flathead between 45-55cm ill never keep the bigger fish as i enjoy watching them swim down the the depths way to much.And knowing there back in the water for you to try and catch again dosent hurt either.:D

1 out of every 10 Flathead i catch I may keep.

cheers Bron

[MudRiverDan]

I have kept a few just on 70cm and it's true they are not as palatable.

On the other hand I did catch a nice 70cm off the surf beach down south once and it was one of the best I had eaten.

between 50cm - 60cm are a good table fish.

Dan

[bluefin59]

So a question for you ? What do you do if you catch a monster say a meter and he has taken a large live bait that you set out for say a jewy and once you get the big girl in its well and truly dying from the livie lodged in it throat . Do you send it back to where it come from to float away in the current dying or dead or do you risk taking it to at least not see it wasted , me personally I put it back no matter what but it does seem a waste for some who would eat it ...Matt

[MacDougall]

I caught a small tarwhine one time and hooked it right in the main vein in the gill and it was dead before I got the hook free pretty much. Would have been a just legal one (around 21cm) so not much of a feed at all. I threw it in a rock pool and kept fishing, intending to take it home and eat it for lunch (better than just tossing it in the water to float away dead) and even a small fish is okay for a small meal so meh. A big noter wandered up and had a go at me for keeping an undersized bream. I politely informed him that it was in fact a legal sized tarwhine and it was dead. He insisted it was a bream and share a few choice words with me, so I picked it up and tossed it into the river nonchalantly and we both watched on as this stone dead fish floated off on top of the water.

Moral to the story, that is an absolutely stupid thing to do. If the fish is dead you might as well take it. It may be against the law but morally, throwing a dead metre flathead back into the water is just wrong. At least if you take it, you get a hit or miss feed and to be able to show it to people. Better than watching the majestic creature float upside down down the river to become sharkbait. One of those laws that were meant to be broken imo.

[Feral]

What a stupid Question. When its not in the allowed slot to keep.

[Si]

What a stupid Question. When its not in the allowed slot to keep.

I actually think its a very good question (The thread starters question). Minimum and/or maximum sizes dont always protect a fish and allow it to spawn at least once in its lifetime because in the females flatheads case it doesnt. It also doesnt for the mangrove jack as most estuarine jacks are not mature. A discussion on the merits of the size limits vs length at sexual maturity is always a good one in my book. Other factors are at play and influence size limits not just biology. Sometimes this is needed, other times its questionable.

[bluefin59]

It's no different to the snapper bag limit I know there Are people upgrading by throwing smaller ones overboard and the only one that wins out of that is the dolphines and sharks . As far as a stupid question goes Feral I suggest you don't get yourself involved in things that obviously don't sit right with you , I am only adding to the existing thread😃😃Matt.

[MudRiverDan]

I assumed jonboy was asking about releasing fish within the size limit.

Like I said I like between 50cm and 60cm.

Flathead appear quite hardy, I have caught more than one healthy flathead with a big prop gash in it and never had one look sick on release, they seem to take off pretty good.


Dan

[PinHead]

a pet hate of mine..magazines show these pics of people holding up a flathead..lip grippers on it..held vertically head up..bare hands..and then they say..fish was released. Might as well not have bothered. Survival rate when handled like that is not all that high. Supporting the fish by lip grippers usually breaks the throat latch. Holding the fish vertically is a no brainer..gravity forces the internals into a smaller section ofthe body. Dry hands and hot surfaces severely affect the fish. If going to release the fish..use a wet towel (or better still keep it in the water), hold horizontally..get ya pics and place it back in the water. Just because a fish swims away does not mean it survives.

[Toddy_again]

Yeah i dont think its a stupid question at all.
A few years ago I read a study by the NSW DPI I think from memory it had a few suprises about when female flathead are sexually mature.It changed my attitude.
However I drank that report away last year so I dont remember the nitty gritty of it all.
Now wheres my beer???;D....

Toddy

[alleycat]

I never keep a falthead over 60cm and sadly i raely ever catch one over 60 either, also have never caught one with a tag in it, surely there is somebody tagging in the passage.

[Jackson 53]

While there are no right or wrong answers to the original question (and its certainly not a stupid question) it comes down to personal choice. I prefer to keep Flathead between 45 -60 cms. I kept one at 67cm once which I now regret as the eating quality was not as good as the smaller fish. Released one at 84 cms in NSW (where it was legal to keep) which has probably had a million babies by now. I find that at 45cms they start getting a bit of of flesh on the shoulders - quite a bit of difference to the 40cm minimum in Qld.

[ubdkdd]

I base it on how it will look on a plate - big enough so it's legal and filling, small enough it won't go to waste when served with a few potatoes, beans and half a bottle of a nice sav blanc.....

[jonboy]

Thanks for the responses everyone. I suppose the original question could have been elaborated on to make it clearer but most people seem to have got the gist of what I was getting at. It was more of a personal moral question than anything else.
I rarely catch large flathead (+70cm) but regularly get a feed of nice plate sized (+40cm) models. On the rare occasion I've landed a big one (+70cm) my conscience kicks in and away he/she swims. I suppose I was wanting to gauge whether my moral compass should be recalibrated or not.