Pine River flatties beat me again

[MSB]

First post. Here goes.

Took my brother out yesterday to try and find where the flatties hide in this river in summer. This has always been a challenge for me but I keep trying to crack the code. I can usually get my bag (and stay for more releasing the extras) in winter on softies in the piney but come summer.... I'm stumped. I have a theory that they're too full of prawns. It couldn't possibly be my gentlemans hours start times.

We had a late (for some) start around 9.30am and finished about 4, fishing nearly all of the runout.

We fished from the back of Bald Hills right down to the Ted Smout bridge. We tried everywhere and everything using soft plastics. Banks, dropoffs, creek mouths, channel edges, drifting, anchored. Did the lot. Even tried my secret winter honey holes that always fire for me.

After 6 hours of flogging the water to foam we ended up with 3 throwbacks, a legal bream (released), and 2 keeper flat ones (45 and 51) that just weren't worth a photo. The best one was a bartail and not a dusky. I don't catch too many of those in the piney.

I also caught a resonably sized fat shouldered trevally which I'm told don't cook up all that well, so I've been releasing all that I catch. But this one was a good size and is destined for the smoker for a test. Don't they go well for their size!

Anyway, I got my wife and I a feed for tea tonight and my brother got squat coz the only thing he caught was a bad case of sunburn. And I didn't bag him about that at all. Well... maybe just a tad. Like all day.

Cheers
Reg

Don't be afraid to keep those trevally gurn, bleed them as soon as you catch them, put them on an ice slurry and as Dignity said , beautiful firm white flesh, perfect for curries or on the bbq, 99% of fish are good to eat if they are treated correctly when caught, bleeding and ice slurry is the go, works on crabs and prawns a treat as well, good post by the way
MSB