Wowee! What a day! Writing up now on today’s trip to the Pine Rivers. Was really only after a flattie or two but ended up ticking yet another species off my lure only bucketlist. I arrived at launch spot a bit shy of 10:30am. Normally these hours I’d be out working but work had been cancelled for the next 2 days so here I am!
My initial idea was to fish the pylons of the freeway bridge then move on in further up the North Pine River passage but seeing how the tide hadn’t turned I made use of it and paddled out further. I followed the current all the way past Deep Water bend with two lures in tow. Amazingly no fish! It was approaching low tide so everywhere was super shallow! I had decided to beach the kayak some what 200m further pass the Deep Water Bend’s boat ramp and spend some time walking the banks flicking SP. No luck either!
On the tide turn, I jumped back on the kayak and pedaled with it back in. Did multiple loops around the various pylons of the bridge once more but no luck. Pushing on I pedaled into the South Pine branch of the system. Just at the entrance, I hooked onto a small bream. “Seriously!” I thought to myself. Hours and hours of agonising pain to get a lousy bream!? 😂🤣
Determined not to be beaten I pushed on into this system. Looking at the fish finder, the depths were all around 3m so was perfect! Oh how wrong I was! Around 1.5km in I turned around at the little river island and headed back out. Wholly hell! Against wind and current and probably an hour paddle to finally get back to the junction. I was wrecked!
At this point, I felt like pulling the pin. It was around 1pm. Noticing how the current was weaker in the North Pine branch of the system I gave it one last shot! I’ve been down this branch before in my boat. There was a nice little cove-like area further down on the right that I was keen to troll a lure through; however even before I got there I hooked onto yet another little bream! Both bream so far were caught on the Gold Berkley Shad. On entering that little Cove I hook and dropped a larger bream. Definitely legal but dropped as I tried to lift it into the kayak. I could have landed it with a net but serious I was over pulling in breams! 😂😂🤣 I wanted a flattie! A big one!! Please please, I wished!
The little cove was awesome! No snags but surrounded by deep roots of mangroves. Definitely crab territory. I met two other kayakers in this cove and exchanged updates. They’ve had only just arrive so nothing.
I trolled my new favourite lure the awesome Jackal throughout this Cove. On the last pass I hooked onto something solid but with tiny head shakes! Confused as to what it was I cautiously battled it in. Turns out to be a new lure species for me; the almighty spotted rock cod. Measuring in a tad undersized at 33cm I released it to fight another day.
I left the little cove via another entrance further down. Turning back for one last leg to the launch spot I concentrated on trolling between 3 and 4m of water. To my amazement I landed a nice barred grunter coming in at 35cm (released).
Finished up 3:30pm and buggered. Not a very productive day to say the least but 3 breams, a grunter and a good old cod! Who’d complain!
Until next time! See you all out there on the water!
