Dusky Flathead
Where and when to catch Dusky Flathead in New South Wales: the NSW season, the spots in our guide that hold them, and where to find NSW's current size and bag limits.
- Size
- Up to 1.2m, commonly 40–60cm
- NSW season
- Year-round (best Oct–Apr)
- NSW spots
- 66
Overview
Dusky flathead are the estuary fish of NSW summers. Every coastal lake, river mouth and harbour from Tweed Heads to the Victorian border holds them, and the shallow sand flats of the central coast lakes and Sydney's bays are where a whole generation learnt to fish soft plastics. They're year-round fish, but the warmer months from spring to autumn are the main season, when they're up on the flats feeding hard. They're also the one fish here with a top end as well as a bottom: NSW protects the big breeding females with a maximum legal length, so a monster lizard gets a photo and goes back.
NSW Size & Bag Limits
NSW limits for Dusky Flathead are set by NSW DPIRD and change from time to time, so we link them rather than copy them. Check NSW DPIRD's limits and NSW DPIRD: dusky flathead and NSW DPIRD: dusky flathead rule changes before you fish.
Western Australian limits don't apply in New South Wales.
Where to Catch Dusky Flathead in NSW
Dusky flathead are in almost every NSW estuary, coastal lake and harbour. Look for sand and weed flats with a drop-off nearby, channel edges and drain mouths. The spots below list them, from bridge pylons and wharves to entrance channels and the lake flats.
Sydney Harbour
Sydney East & Botany
Sydney Northern Beaches
Sutherland & Port Hacking
Central Coast
Newcastle & Lake Macquarie
Port Stephens & Hunter
Illawarra
How to Catch
Best Baits
Live poddy mullet, live prawns and live nippers are the best. Whitebait, pilchard fillet, mullet strip, squid strip and peeled prawn on the drift catch plenty too.
Lures
Soft plastics are the classic: 3–5 inch paddle-tails, curl-tails and jerk-shads, with bigger plastics and swimbaits for the big fish. Shallow and deep-diving hardbodies, vibes and blades worked along drop-offs, and surface walkers over very shallow flats in summer.
Rigs
For lures, 6–15 lb braid with a 12–20 lb fluorocarbon leader (those small, sharp teeth wear through light leader on a long fight) and a jig head heavy enough to stay near the bottom in the current, usually 1/8–1/2 oz. For bait, a running sinker rig with a short trace to a size 1/0–4/0 hook, or drift a whole whitebait or strip on a gang of small hooks.
Technique
Cover ground. Flathead don't chase far, so the job is to put the lure or bait in front of as many fish as possible. Cast plastics up-current along drop-offs and flat edges, let them hit the bottom, then hop them back with two or three short lifts and a pause; most hits come as the lure settles. Walk the flats on foot or drift a boat across them, and fish the edges where the tide pours off. Live bait on a running sinker works best on the edge of a channel through the run-out. Flathead often hold on to the lure and shake their heads, so keep steady pressure, and use a landing net for big fish rather than the leader. If you get one, cast straight back: where there's one there's often more.
Best Time
Through the warmer months, when they're most active; numbers drop away and the fish go quieter in the coldest water. Daylight is the base. The run-out tide is the classic window, as bait gets flushed off the flats and down drains and gutters to waiting fish, and the first part of the run-in over the flats is good too. The state of the tide at your spot matters more than the hour.
Identification
Also known as Flathead, flattie, lizard (the big ones), mud flathead, estuary flathead
A long, flattened fish with a broad, flat head, eyes on top and a wide mouth. Colour runs from sandy brown through olive and grey-brown to almost black above, sometimes with darker bars and pale spots, and white below; the fish matches the bottom it lives on. The tail gives it away: bluish-grey on the lower half, brown-spotted above, with a single large dark blotch on the upper rear of the fin. Other flathead (sand, blue-spotted, bar-tailed) lack that single big blotch and carry their own pattern of tail bars or spots, and none grows as large. Every flathead has sharp spines on the gill covers. Hold one by the body behind the head or with a lip grip, never by sliding a hand down from the head.
Size & Growth
Most fish caught are 35–55 cm. A 60 cm fish is a solid one, a 70 cm fish is a very good one, and fish over a metre are caught every season by the patient and the lucky. Females grow much faster and bigger than males: fish over about 45 cm are almost all females, and the metre-plus giants are big breeding females that are worth far more to the estuary than to the freezer. Spawning is in the warmer months.
Diet & Habitat
An ambush predator that lies motionless, often buried in the sand with just the eyes showing, and strikes upwards at whatever comes past. Mostly fish (mullet, whitebait, gobies, small bream and whiting) plus prawns, crabs and squid. Dusky flathead live in estuaries, coastal lakes, sheltered bays and the lower reaches of rivers, over sand, mud, gravel and seagrass, occasionally pushing up to the tidal limit. They hold where moving water delivers food: sand-flat edges, drop-offs into channels, the mouths of drains and gutters, weed-bed edges and the downstream side of sandbars and rock bars.
Eating Quality
Excellent: white, flaky, mild and sweet, the reason flathead and chips is a national dish. Fillet them skin-off; there are no scales to bother with and the spines are best avoided altogether. Fish in the 40–60 cm range are the best eating and the best fillets. Bigger females are coarser and better released anyway. Bleed and ice them straight away, and keep them out of the sun.
Guides Featuring Dusky Flathead
Dusky Flathead elsewhere: Western Australia