First boat fishing experience

[Irish]

Went out to Frankghanistan yesterday for my first taste of boat fishing with the father in law, Bloodyaussie was going to come too, but he wasn't able to make it, brother in law had to cancel too so it was just me(only recently started learning how to swim) and Kym(top bloke).

Grabbed some bait on the way and arrived at our destination at 7.30.

We had booked a six man boat to seat four, but when we got there we were wondering if the six men they used for testing were from a pygmy tribe or something, as the boat settled quite a bit when we gotin(both upwards of 100kegs each), would have been a tight squeeze if the boys had been there too, think we would have had to "persuade" the hire guy to give us a boat that would actually seat four.

Anyway, set off and made our way out, passed a few other boats on the way, and being a genial kinda guy, I waved and said g'day, half of the miserable bastids just glared at me or ignored me.
Reminds me of a range day with BA, when he noted that it looked like some of the guys had been forced out of the house to partake in their pastime, lol.

Anyhoo, I digress, we putted out into the bay and headed out to roughly where everyone else was anchored. We were looking for some snapper(I was looking for anything, as I've come up with duck eggs the other two times I've fished.

Once we dropped anchor we rigged and baited our lines and set about it.

I had only had a line wet for about two minutes when something pulled on the reel.
We both looked at the line and I said "couldn't have a bite this soon", but started reeling in anyway.
Line went tight, definitely something on!!! Could hardly contain myself as I reeled in what I thought was going to be my dinner that evening, saw something looming towards the surface and pulled, revealing... a tiny flathead!

I was chuffed for my first fish, but dutifully threw it back as it was a few cm off being legal.

Re baited, cast, bang! another bite. Reeled in, anothre flattie, this one a bit bigger but still undersize.

Re baited, cast, bang! Another one, then two, then another.

Kym was hitting with the same regularity, timed one and he had a bite less than half a minute after casting.

As fun as all this was, we weren't any closer to having something to accompany our chips, so we decided to move to a different spot. Same again.

All up we reckon we caught & released around 16 of the little bastids, and while we missed out on getting something worth keeping, it was valuable experience for me, along with being a good time.

Can't wait to do it again

Pics to follow.

[threedogs]

Best bait for flathead is flathead, never knock back a bag of flatty fillets, one of the better going around.
As they say next time hey.

[Irish]

Yeah, hopefully next time I'll bag a good un. We were using pilchards and pippies.

[Irish]

[the ferret]

Tell ya wot guys, I have found that a small slice of the bright orange plastic from the old road cone (dunces hat) does a mighty job on Flathead when doing a slow drift.
Just put it on the hook and bingo, they just love bright orange!!
Cheers, the ferret.

[Maxhead]

Tell ya wot guys, I have found that a small slice of the bright orange plastic from the old road cone (dunces hat) does a mighty job on Flathead when doing a slow drift.
Just put it on the hook and bingo, they just love bright orange!!
Cheers, the ferret.

Haha, never heard that one. will give it a shot, can't see why it wouldn't work..
Go the flatties, I love them!