queensland Pine River??! Nah It Couldn't Be...

[Panther]

A couple of mates and I decided late in the week to get out early Saturday morning for a fish. Looking at the almanac, tides and moon phase I thought it would be another "doughnut" day but I was wrong.

At the crack of dawn we grabbed some bait (prawns and pillies) and launched my 4m tinnie from Redcliffe near the mouth of the Pine River. Things started a little slow for the first half hour until we nailed a couple of legal bream, pike (on lure) and also a couple of shovelnose rays. Best bream going 31cm - decent enough. Moving on to the rock walls that run the along the shoreline we lost a couple of very decent fish and managed a couple of legal whiting. Things were looking up as we had only been on the water for a hour and a half and already had a small feed.

We decided to head to the Hornibrook where I had some marks from previous sessions... before too long James nailed a flathead just under 60cm and we also caught more undersize bream etc.. After loosing a tonne of gear on fish/rocks/reef we made a call to venture further into the Pine River mouth. Good call it was.

Drifting our baits over the next few hours proved very effective as we started hauling in a mixed bag of flathead, bream, whiting and a lone flounder at 31cm. The largest flathead was 63cm with a few more going into the mid 50's and a few in the mid 40's just to top up the days catch. At one stage during the day we all thought we might fill my small esky - if we hadn't missed another 3 or 4 good flathead right at the boat then we most certainly would have. 

One of the best estuary fishing days I have experienced and all in the Pine!! It's rare in my experience to get a decent/regular feed from this river and 'very' rare for there to be a day without catching a single stingray or catfish. I think we kept about 16 decent fish at days end (1:30pm). All fish kept were caught on bait including live whiting. Lures (soft plastics and hard bodies) didn't fair well the entire day. Sometimes happens...

My perception of fishing almanacs as an effective fishing tool is not as strong as it once was after several outings in great locations on supposed good days produced nothing or very little.. and on the other side of the coin, days like yesterday.

[Old Scaley]

Nice report. Thanks for sharing. Some nice fillets among that lot. How can an ugly fish like flathead taste so good?  Many years ago I used to fish the mouth of the Pine quite a bit and good flatties on live diver whiting was a pretty reliable catch. Not so much fishing pressure on it then, with Aspley the end of the universe as far as Brisbane went.

i think your report will be very encouraging for a lot of members.

[samsteele115]

That is a very very good pine river session! A hard river to work out and not consistent. Well done  

[Doyley]

Nice catch mate.  Haven't heard of too many better Pine sessions than that one. Thanks for the report 

[kmcrosby78]

Great mixed bag there mate, well done.

[Tybo]

Great report, if past years are to go by then lots of small male flatheads should start grouping up around the Hornibrook around now. Mind you I went down on Friday(the morning before you) and couldn't get a thing in all my usual spots. Thought I might've been early, obviously not.

When it comes to the Pine, they're either on or they're not.

[curranboy99]

Great Report!

The pine system is for sure underrated - caught nearly all of my best bream in there.

But as the others said its inconsistent but when its on is on! Well done, great report again!!