Cam Fishing - Destinations Botany Bay

Flathead Spinning from the SHORES OF BOTANY BAY
– by Carl Dubois.

Don’t have a boat? No worries! Botany Bay offers fantastic opportunities for flathead spinning from the shore with many locations having parking right next to the water. Sans Souci, Dolls Point, Brighton-le-sands, Foreshore Road and Silver Beach (Kurnell) all offer easy access to prime flathead haunts.
Flathead are an ambush fish and settle in the sand waiting for a meal to swim by and this gives you a clue as to where to fish for them. The baitfish, prawns, etc that they feed on will congregate around the shallows where there is some cover for refuge. Weed beds and rocky outcrops provide this cover and flathead will lurk around the edges picking off any unwary prey.
The bottom two hours of a run out tide is my favourite, as the baitfish drop back from the shallows into deeper water and as I’m wading, it allows me to get out near the drop-offs. But remember, flathead will venture up onto the flats so I cast ahead of me as I slowly wade out.
I work my lures along the weed edges and drop-offs, working the area thoroughly before continuing on. With soft plastics, I use a ‘double-flick, pause’ retrieve while with hard bodies I wind slowly while drawing the rod to my side, giving a couple of twitches, and then I return the rod to the front while winding in the slack line. This action pauses the lure which is often when a flattie' will hit, so you need to be on your toes.

The gear you’ll need is minimal and all mine fits into a small backpack. For lures, an assortment of soft plastics in minnow or shad shapes from 100mm to 150mm on 1/0 to 3/0 jig heads will be fine. Colours that have worked well for me are gold, white and a squidgy colour called SilverFox. A couple of hard body lures that I’ve used very successfully the last year are Ecogear SX40’s in red/gold, C’ultiva Mira shad’s in blue/silver and the Mad Mullet “Micro Mullet” in hot pink and the trusty Halco Scorpion in Chrome or gold.

A light ‘flick-stick’ matched with a 1000-2000 size reel loaded with 4-6lb braid and a 6-12lb
fluorocarbon leader will see you casting a mile with the lures and the braid lets you feel every
little ‘bump, nudge, WHACK’! My gear is a Daiwa Capricorn 1500 loaded with 4lb Pink Fireline and 6lb fluorocarbon leader, on a Shakespeare Synergy 7ft IM-6 rod.

Three items that I think are essential for this style of fishing are a non-slip glove, a good pair of long nose pliers and wetsuit or reef boots. The glove is great for getting a grip of the flatheads lower jaw without it chewing your thumb to bits and the pliers make unhooking a simple task. The boots offer protection from rocks and shells as well as from the electric or numb rays you may step on. Over the years I’ve only stepped on two but they give quite a jolt and each time I was glad I was wearing my rubberized boots!

Other items include a pair of Polaroid’s which are great for distinguishing where the weed-beds are and a baseball style cap helps cut out the glare. So slap on plenty of sunscreen, wade on in and start spinning. And when you do catch them, remember that the big flatties' (anything over 65cm) are the female breeders, so be happy with just a photo to brag with and let the old girl go do her job.