Episode 6: Tuross Head Dusky Flathead With Steve Starling

Starlo’s Top Tips For Mega Tuross Flathead

• Deep holes don’t hold big fish. Large flathead are always found where the food is, so learn to read the water and know how to find the “choke points” where fish accumulate.
• Big flathead are not dumb and can be leader shy. Know how to “finesse up” your gear to get better results on leader-shy fish and understand that spooked fish can often still be caught once you know how.
• Placing a stinger in the tail of a large, unweighted soft plastic is important not only to convert strikes into hookups, but to balance the lure. The technique for working soft plastics in shallow water is very different from the techniques usually employed for flathead fishing and can revolutionise your fishing.

Top Lures For Tuross Head Flathead

• 100mm Squidgy Fish in Black/Gold or Silver Fox colours on a 7-12 gram jig head.
• Squidy Wriggler in bloodworm colour (usually used for bream, but gets a big by-catch of flathead).
• 200mm and 150mm Squidgy Whip Bait in Drop Bear or White Lightning colours fished unweighted with a large jig hook and stinger.
• 160mm Berkley Giant Ripple Shad.

Best Time Of Year & Tides

• Flathead can be caught year-round in Tuross Lake, but the October to January period is when larger fish aggregate and are easiest to connect with.
• The last half of the run-out tide and the first hour of the run-in tide give best results as the fish are aggregated around choke points. Once the flats are inundated the fish can spread out and be harder to find.