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Hi everybody, I do a LOT of flathead fishing and until recently I did it all with bait but I'm interested in giving it a go with lures. (No mess, no smell and you don't have to keep rebaiting the hook) Now as hard body lures are not cheap I don't want to lay down ten bucks for a lure that doesn't work. What is your favourite lizard lure and how do you use it? ??? ???
My absolute favourite was the mann's stretch 10+ in the blue pillie colour which they don't make anymore would you beleive. There's a blue substitute but it hasn't caught me as many.
Mann's stretch 10+ in the grey ghost is number two with a bullet.
haven.t caught many flatties on a lure but used a gold bomber from kmart to catch a 73 cm flattie and yes i put the old girl back because she was full of roe
well thier are a few that i like
but for the price you shouldn't under estimate the stumpjummper
but the really catch some good flatties i don't think you could go past a softplastic
just cat to the edges of the weedbeds or into the shallows and slowly retrive it with lots of bottom contact
The other thing you might want to think about using the hardbodies is the cost when you lose one.
The ones mentioned so far (Manns in Grey Ghost or Scarlet O'Hara, Micro Mullets, Tilsan Minnow or Bass) have all caught decent fish for me (up to 65cm), but I can't count the number of times I've had to get out the lure retriever to get a snagged one back. It's hard enough to do this from the boat, but you'll be stuffed trying it from the bank/shore. Kissing your $12-$15 lure goodbye on it's first cast isn't much fun.
If you go with the soft plastics instead, you should be able to get 2 packets of SPs and some jig heads for not much more than the price of 1 hard body. It hurts much less to lose one of these.
Something I've found with the SPs and flatties - don't be scared to go large. It seems that the bigger the SP, the bigger the fish they attract. We regularly catch 60+cm flatties on size 6 Squidgy wrigglers. (125mm?). Use the 1/4 oz jig heads with these and you're set.
Also you can pick up the "how to" Squidgy DVD and a sample pack of Squidgies for around $25 bucks...
If I was only allowed one lure to catch a flathead I would go with the Micro Mullet in the color "pink bit"
These have worked for me when all else failed, it does seem to catch it's fair share of small to medium size flatties, but does snag the odd big fella as well.
Most of mine have come on silver B52's. Cast right up to the edge of the water in the shallows on the incomming tide. Even big flathead tend to get right up to about 5-10cm of water and prey on the baitfish species that tend to get into the shallow water to escape other predators.
I saw another guy very sucessfully flathead fishing around Hinchinbrook with an electric motor mounted on either end of his punt, motoring around the edges of sand banks and casting a Rio prawn along the bank in 10-20cm of water.
Pink Micro Mullet in hard body for me too.
Soft plastics, well, the ol squidy fish in garry glitter or gold colour have worked a treat, btu also look for ecogear grass minnows. Natural colours are best. Don't be afraid to cast to shallow water either.
the most important this is to make sure that you lure gets down to were the fish are, with flathead that's on the bottom.
so if you do buy some hard body lures make sure you get some that go to different deaths. eg if the water is 3m deep, use a lures that runs at 3m so that it is bumping into the bottom, but if you use a lure that runs at 2m it will be to far off the bottom.
with this in mind the stumpjumpers would be the go as they have interchangable bibs so that you can use a lure to fish in water that is 2m deep, then change the bib and use the same lure to fish is 3.5m and still be hitting the bottom.
For plastics i like to run them along the bottom at a gentle roll. Any colour and any size will work for flatties as they are not fussy. In dirty water try to go a high vis colour like reds and whites. Larger plastics work best but in saying that today i pulled out a 50+ flatty while chasing bream with a 2" powerbait. Also don't be afraid to bang em right into a snag as i find a lot of larger lizards will follow you out from under them particularly in faster moving water (eg mid run out tide).
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