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About flathead
Flathead is one of the most popular bottom-dwelling fish from the family of Platycephalidae, known as distinctive flattened head and elongated bodies. More specifically, their eyes are situated on top looking upwards. This is because this shape can be easily blend into the ocean floor compared with normal shape of fish you think of.
Flathead have mottled skin and often brown or darker brown which is similar colour with sand or mud, to perform excellent camouflage in their environment. They have very sharp spines on their head and along their body, witch is for defence mechanism against predators.
You needs to be careful to these spines when you hold it otherwise it will stab you very easily. The tip of holding flathead is to hold top of their head and belly with one hand and hold bottom of their body with other hand. (I stab my self with these spines when I first time catch flathead lol)
This fish can be the size of 30 cm to 70 cm in length, even though some of them can be grow over a meter long. In Australia there is size limit that is legal to catch. It will be different on what species of flathead you catch but for instance, flathead (Dusky) is 36cm to 70cm. For more information for size limit of fish click here.
Flatheads are very popular to catch among recreational and commercial fisherman, especially in Australia. They are prized for their mild, white, and flaky flesh, witch is considered delicious fish and it can be cooked various ways. Such as grilling, frying, or baking and they are all awesome.
Best way of catching Flathead
If you are visiting this page this will most likely what you want to know. There is some tips of catching flathead to help you catch it more easily witch I will introduce after this.
1. Place to catch
Understanding where the flathead stay will be very beneficial to you when you are aiming for it. To know where the flathead stay, you needs to know the habits of flathead and how they catch prays. As I said before, flathead normally stay at muddy or sandy places because flathead has flat body to lie down at the bottom and if there are any stone or sharp thing it will be very unconfutable to stay.
Therefore, they normally can be catch at estuaries, sandbanks, and the edges of weed beds. In my opinion sand bank is the best choice to fish. This is because at sandbank’s tide can bring stuff that flathead eats and ambush-types flathead will love there. By the way I got my first flathead at sandbank as well:)(The picture above is the flathead I got it for first time)
2. Lures vs Baits
To choose the best lure to catch it needs to understand what flathead naturally eats. It is said that flathead normally eats the smaller fish called Whiting. By the way this is another reason why flathead stay at sandbank. Whiting likes to stay at sandbank so flathead likes to stay at sand bank to wait for there favourite pray Whiting.
As a fisherman, you should use bait or lures that looks similar to what the fish eats. For the flathead, they often eat Whiting. Therefore, if you are using lures choosing white lures will be very effective to catch flathead. Moreover, using bright colour of lures are very effective as well. For example, red, pink, orange etc. This is because bright colour will stand out in the water and will attract flathead. If you want to know more information about lures click here “Tips of choosing lures“.
For the bait, using live bait will be effective that dead bait. This is because flathead are ambush-type and waiting for pray to come closer and they get more attracted with moving stuff. Therefore, using live bait will be effective than using dead bait.
