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Bite Compass
Estuary / River

Flathead

Platycephalus spp.

Flathead are ambush predators that lie half-buried on sandy and muddy bottoms throughout Perth's Swan River, Mangles Bay and the Peel-Harvey. The Swan's flathead is mostly the bar-tailed flathead, with southern blue-spotted flathead in Cockburn Sound and the south-west estuaries — not the east-coast dusky — and they're one of the easiest soft-plastic targets going. Bounce a plastic along the bottom and hold on for the thump.

Size
Up to 5kg, commonly 500g–1.5kg
Peak season
Year-round
Minimum size (WA)
30 cm
Bag limit (WA)
8 (per flathead species)

Overview

Flathead are one of Perth's most accessible estuary species — found on sandy and muddy bottoms throughout the Swan River and sheltered bays. They're ambush predators that lie half-buried in the substrate waiting to pounce on passing prey. Soft plastic fishing for flathead is one of the most effective and enjoyable ways to fish Perth's estuaries.

Identification

Also known as Flatty, southern blue-spotted flathead, sand flathead, bar-tailed flathead, lizard

Unmistakable once seen — a flattened wedge-shaped head, eyes set on top, and a long tapering body built to lie buried in sand with only the eyes showing. Sandy to mottled brown above, white below. Around Perth the common estuary fish is the bar-tailed flathead, pale brown with small brown spots and dark horizontal bars on the tail, which completes its whole life cycle in the Swan. The southern blue-spotted flathead, with scattered blue-white spots and big black spots on the tail margin, is the one in Cockburn Sound and the estuaries south of Fremantle. The east coast's dusky flathead — the one that grows to a metre and has slot limits in Queensland and NSW — isn't the fish you're catching in the Swan. Watch the sharp spines on the gill covers when you unhook them.

How to Catch

Best Baits

Whitebait, prawns, small mullet, squid strips

Lures

Soft plastics are king: 3–4 inch paddle-tails (Z-Man MinnowZ 3", Gulp 4" Minnow in pumpkinseed or nuclear chicken) on a 1/4–3/8oz jig head. Gulp 3" Shrimp on a 1/6oz head is deadly over the flats. Metal blades (Ecogear ZX40, Samaki Vibelicious 70mm) work when you need to cover ground or sound the bottom in deeper channels.

Rigs

For bait, a running sinker rig with a size 2/0 hook and enough weight to hold bottom. For lures, a 1/4–3/8oz jig head matched to a 3–4 inch paddle-tail soft plastic. Use 6–10lb fluorocarbon leader.

Technique

Cast soft plastics or bait across sandy flats and work them slowly along the bottom with a hop-and-drop retrieve. The key is keeping contact with the bottom — flathead won't chase far from their ambush position. Cover plenty of ground, fan-casting to locate fish. The hit is usually a sharp thump followed by a head-shake.

Best Time

Active through the day, midday included. Moving water that flushes baitfish across the flats is ideal. Work the edges of channels and drop-offs where flathead sit waiting for food to wash past.

Size & Growth

A typical Swan or Peel flathead is 30–40 cm and 400–800 g. A good one is 50 cm and over a kilo; the 5 kg headline size is a genuinely big fish and not something metro estuaries produce often. WA's estuary species simply don't grow to the size of the east coast's dusky flathead, so calibrate your expectations accordingly — a 60 cm WA flatty is a very big fish, not a starting point. The big ones are almost always females and are slow to replace, so there's a reasonable argument for photographing the standout fish rather than filleting them.

Diet & Habitat

Ambush predators — they lie half-buried and lunge upward at prawns, small mullet, hardyheads, whitebait, crabs and anything else that passes overhead. They sit on sand and mud, especially where sand meets weed, along channel drop-offs and up on the shallow flats on a rising tide, from ankle-deep out to 20 m or more. In WA the estuary species range down the west coast and along the south coast, with the Swan River from Fremantle up to the Narrows, Mangles Bay, Cockburn Sound and the Peel-Harvey the reliable metro ground. Bar-tailed flathead are the Swan-Canning fish and are rarely found much south of it; southern blue-spotted flathead take over down the south-west coast, and other flathead species run through the north of the state.

WA Size & Bag Limits

Minimum size 30 cm
Bag limit 8 (per flathead species)
Counts toward Counts within the statewide nearshore/estuarine finfish mixed daily bag of 16. No slot limit applies in WA.

Minimum size: 300mm. Individual daily bag limit: 8, applying to each flathead species separately, counted within the statewide nearshore/estuarine finfish total mixed bag of 16 per fisher — so eight flathead leaves room for eight other nearshore fish. WA has no slot limit like Queensland's.

Last checked . Limits change — confirm with DPIRD before you fish.

Eating Quality

Yes — flathead are some of the best eating in Perth. Firm, white, mild fillets with a clean flavour and, once you're past the head, almost no bones to pick around — the gun choice for fish and chips. Fillet and skin them, and take the cheeks out of the head while you're there; they're the best mouthful on the fish. Bigger fish over about 45 cm give thick fillets worth pan-frying in butter or grilling; smaller ones are better crumbed or battered. The flesh is firm enough that it won't collapse in a curry or a chowder either. Bleed and ice them and eat within a day or two — flathead softens noticeably after that. They freeze better than most estuary fish if skinned, portioned and vac-sealed, though frozen fillets are best crumbed.

Where to Catch Flathead

Albany (Emu Point / King George Sound / Salmon Holes) Applecross Jetty (Swan River) Ashfield Flats (Swan River) Augusta (Hardy Inlet / Flinders Bay) Bicton Baths (Swan River) Blackwall Reach (Swan River) Bremer Bay (Town Foreshore / Bremer River Mouth / Point Gordon) Canning Bridge (Applecross/Mount Pleasant) Cape Naturaliste (Dunsborough / Bunker Bay) Cheynes Beach (Waychinicup) Claremont Jetty (Swan River) Cleaverville (Cleaverville Creek / Cleaverville Beach) Como Jetty (Swan River) Coodanup Foreshore (Peel Inlet) Coode Street Jetty (South Perth) Dawesville Cut Deep Water Point (Canning River) Denmark (Wilson Inlet / Ocean Beach / Lights Beach / Hay River) Duke of Orleans Bay / Wharton Beach (Condingup) Dunsborough (Geographe Bay / Old Dunsborough) East Street Jetty (Swan River) Emu Point (Albany) Esperance (Esperance Jetty / Bandy Creek / Cape Le Grand / Twilight Beach) Guilderton (Moore River Mouth) Herron Point (Harvey Estuary) Hopetoun (Mary Ann Haven / Two Mile / Four Mile / Starvation) Island Point Reserve (Harvey Estuary) Jurien Bay (Jetty & Marina Walls) Karratha (Nickol Bay / Hearson's Cove) Kent Street Weir (Canning River) Lancelin (Jetty & Back Beach) Ledge Point (Beach, Groyne & Reef) Leschenault Estuary (Bunbury) Mangles Bay (Rockingham) Miaboolya Beach (Carnarvon) Mosman Bay Jetty (Swan River) Mount Henry Bridge (Canning River) Munglinup Beach Murchison River (Kalbarri) Murray River (Yunderup to Pinjarra) Narrows Bridge (Swan River) Palm Beach Jetty (Rockingham) Peaceful Bay Pelican Point (Crawley, Swan River) Point Walter (Swan River) Port Hedland (Spoilbank Marina / Cooke Point / tidal creeks) Port Kennedy Boat Ramp (Boat Launching Facility) Riverside Gardens (Bayswater, Swan River) Riverton Bridge (Canning River) Rockingham Jetty Rottnest Island (Shore Fishing) Safety Bay Salter Point (Canning River) Shelley Foreshore (Canning River) Shoalwater Beach South Yunderup (Murray Delta Canals) Success Hill Reserve (Upper Swan, Bassendean) The Causeway (Swan River) Tranby Jetty (Maylands, Swan River) Two Peoples Bay (Albany) Walpole / Nornalup Inlet (Coalmine Beach / Mandalay Beach) Warnbro Beach Wedge Island & Grey (4WD Beaches) Willie Creek (creek mouth / front flats)

Guides Featuring Flathead

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