Float Fishing Sandy Shallows Drifting Whitebait Pulls in Flathead Too

Today I had a few minutes to fish so I took along my 6.3 meter rock rod and some float fishing gear. I was using a sliding float with two rubber stoppers. I set my leader rather light at 8lbs, expecting to get leatherjacket, at one meter long. I have brought along some whitebait I had leftover from frying them. I had saves the big oddballs and the extra. I lay them out in a freezer bag as far apart as possible so they aren't a solid brick when I take them out of the freezer.

I cast out and instantly the puffers started coming out of everywhere. I know that puffers love berley so I throw berley where I dont want to fish, and largely the puffers go over there and terrorize the berley instead of my line.

I threw ahead of some underwater mossy rocks and let the tide drift it past. Luckily on my second or third cast I got an Ocean Leatherjacket. I let it go. A few minutes pass and my float goes down. I try to pull the hookset slowly with the long rock rock but I miss it. I begin to reel in to check my bait and something strts following it. I pull and stop pull and stop. Its a flathead pulling up behind my bait. The float is keeping it near the surface so I can see. It didnt take it but I knew it was out there now.

I managed to catch about a 30 something cm flathead on a small whitebait. I hook the whitebait through the eyes into the skull so that it doesnt come off the hook easily. I thought if I put a bigger baitfish on I might catch a bigger flathead. I pulle dout the biggest one and hooked it up.

I casted around to different spots with no luck. I look for my float and its not visible. I pull the slack out and reel. No float. I reel some more. I thought at first that maybe leatherjackets or toadfish bit my line off. Sometimes theyll do that.

I kept reeling to get my line back on the spool and not ten meters from wher eIm standing the line gets tight. Im using light line for my mainline at 10 pounds. I put steady pressure on to see if I can pull the hook free from vegetation it might have gotten hung on. I can feel a dead weight so I pump the rod slowly. It starts to move slowly. Then it takes off. The drag starts pulling out for a couple runs. 

That was the first flathead I caught on a float with a rock rod. I didn't expect to catch them like this but Ill take all the 40 something cm flatties I can catch. I had wanted to make fish curry so I kept this one. I let the others go.

I will try to work on a float presentation for drifting bait over the shallows for flathead. Often I'll throw pink soft plastics to coax them up off the bottom.