I haven't fished the Pine since the 2011 floods stripped the river bare. So after some good reports, I thought I would tempt fate and had a crack this morning.
Met my young bloke at Deepwater bend at 6.30am. Headed straight across to the northern bank and slowly worked our way up stream on the runout tide. Fished about a 400m stretch, returning to the beginning each run. Over the next 5 hours, we managed a dozen flathead hooked, for nine landed and lost 3 boatside. Kept five between 42 cm and 51 cm. Also 4 flounder, all around 33cm which also ended up in the esky. Also got my first GT, only a pup at 46cm but gave a good account of himself on the light gear.
Had a couple of rods rigged to throw at the tailor but didn't see any action. Apart from the occasional jumping mullet, there was no surface action anywhere. midday saw us pull up stumps for the long run back to the boat ramp, all of 150 metres.
It's at this stage where things went sour. Dropped the young fella back at the pontoon to get my ute. I was hanging onto one of the cleats on the pontoon. I then decided I would grab the launch rope from under the front hatch and get on the pontoon and lead the boat around to the trailer. I grabbed the rope and it was coming out of the hatch nicely, till I got to the edge of the boat and went to step onto the pontoon. The boat had drifted about a foot from the pontoon, so I took the step and planted if firmly only to have the rope catch on something at that time stopping my momentum of stepping the other foot off the boat onto the pontoon. Well now, I was stranded, one foot on the pontoon the other on the boat, yep you guessed it, at that angle the boat slides very quickly from under you. Slam dunk, into the drink with a shirt full of sore ribs after collecting the edge of the pontoon on the way down.
To add to the pain, I had my phone in my pocket as well. Anyways, got the boat out, stripped off down to my undies, gave my young bloke my esky with all the fish in it and headed home. Just glad I wasn't pulled over. Can't wait to do it all again, well the fishing part of it anyway.
Plastics used were 3" gulp shrimp on 1/4oz 1/0 and 4" plazzo's on 1/4oz 3/0, numbers on each were about 50/50