The 2016 Gold Coast Flathead Classic has come and gone. The lessons I learnt from participating in such a well organised event will stay with me forever. Having never fished the event before I was relying upon all the lessons I had learnt from chasing flathead along the Fraser Coast. Along with any information I could find in magazine articles, online blogs, social media posts, YouTube videos and finally, word of mouth from locals.
Our Challenge
Being relatively late entrants to the event my team and I were not gifted with any time on the water to pre-fish or become familiar with locations. We effectively launched on the morning of day one of the event and went in blind. As a result, our expectations were not that great, instead we were very focussed on learning what we could and of course finding ‘a’ fish.
My Lesson
Perhaps the biggest lesson I took away from the event was that of, ‘knowing and adapting to your environment’. Put simply, fishing the Gold Coast is a completely different kettle of fish compared to fishing in Hervey Bay, why? Well, the environment in which you are fishing has many subtle but significant differences and they all have an impact on technique and tactics used to find and land fish.
Trolling for Flathead
Trolling for flathead was very popular during the event, but for myself, trolling for flathead is almost unheard of. I am used to stealthily sneaking into likely fish holding locations and casting lightly weighted soft plastics at maximum casting range to find flathead. I consider it a huge fail if I see a puff of sand when I spook a fish in the shallows. This is extremely hard to achieve during an event which saw close to 240 team boats plus other recreational anglers, day trippers, 70 foot super yachts, helicopters, you name it !! The water way was busier than the Bruce Highway.
Instead during this event I was completely baffled watching many boats trolling small 2-4 inch hard body lures only a metre or so behind their boat with their motors half raised creating a white wash of water while moving up and down the edges of shallow weed beds. All within metres of each other and also within metres of the constant boating traffic moving up and down the relatively narrow navigational channels.
Key Observations
The key environmental changes were noise and the presence of copious amounts of weed. This in effect forced anglers to change / develop a technique which many of us might not considered the norm. Had I not witnessed this particular trolling technique and also witnessed its success, I would simply not have believed it.
Arriving Home
However, upon returning to Hervey Bay and being confronted with a particularly tough session on the water, I was reminded of this lesson. While taking a breather and wondering what in the world I needed to do, to land the fish which I could plainly see in front of me, it suddenly dawned upon me. I needed to adapt my tactics to overcome a change in the environment.
No, the waterways of Hervey Bay have not suddenly become busier than the Bruce Highway nor had there been a catastrophic increase in the amount of weed in the water. Rather, at the time of writing this article, due to a severe lack of rain. Many of the creeks along Fraser Island had become super clear in terms of water clarity. So clear, that you could spot fish beyond casting range.
The only trouble being; they could also see me and I suspect they could also see the lure which I was casting and due to the waters clarity. They could see the lure so well that they were not convinced to bite. I usually like to fish slightly dirty water as I believe you can expect a reaction bite of sorts from fish as they sense a lure moving close to or passing near them.
This dirty water / environmental condition which I relied upon to leverage results, had gone. My efforts to get back to basics, including downsizing my line, leader, jig head and lure size had all proved ineffective. So, much like the ‘baffling’ trolling that I witnessed during the 2016 Gold Coast Flathead Classic, I decided to try something different.
Apply the Learning
I upsized my jig head weight. Forgot about trying to sneak up on fish I could see. And moved into a location where I could see slightly deeper patches of water. Holes mainly, where the water clarity was still good but less than the shallow water surrounding it. Purely due to the penetration of light. I cast beyond these patches. Let my lure hit the bottom and then ripped it back to the boat much like casting and retrieving for long tail tuna.
Within a handful of casts, I had boated two large flathead who had been hiding in the slightly deeper water. And, who literally threw themselves at the faster moving lure. Knowing and adapting to my environment had been the key. Resulting in the use of a technique which I would probably never have considered before. After a few hours of landing nothing I was a touch shocked but thankful it had worked.
Booking.comBring on the Next Event
Planning is already underway to participate in the next Gold Coast Flathead Classic. Much like my efforts in the 2016 classic I am expecting to learn loads. And I might add, leverage off the skill of my teammates in catching all the fish. To give us our 65th placing in our first every event.
Cheers Kane and Shayne for the great company and for catching all of the fish!!