My best fishing friend let me down...Bris River 19-04-24

[mangajack]

It is with a heavy heart that I tell the tale of a long lasting friendship that ended on Friday.

It was about 1982 I was introduced to GT270 and we became inseparable for nearly 43 years.

I dressed it up with all the nicest of accompaniments over those years and it served me well with many fine encounters of being triumphant.

Sadly on Friday it threw a tanty with the grinners around Mud...what a terrible way to go....topped itself about shoulder height is a most unexpected way...what a disgraceful way to go after being such a champion for so many decades.

Now standing in the corner with all the other dis-used, abused and broken, like a naughty child told to stand in the corner facing the wall....not a whimper at all.

Thank you Mr SnyderGlas for creating my prototype friend, he was an outstanding comrade for so very long.

My initial thoughts were disbelief and a hollow sense that grows within....thoughts of finding a suitable replacement to fill the void and then the realisation that nothing else could fulfill the spot in the rack.

To be honest, i don't think I could develop that amount of trust into something I could buy today...pure graphite just does not have the personality or the toughness of glass and graphite blends.

Anyway, enough of the dwelling on loss and time to regale the stories from Friday....6am launch....live baits by 6.15am....Mud at 6.25am.....Bloody bastard grinners within seconds ad they didn't stop.

So After several spot changes I found ourselves well east of Mud on a rubble patch i had not previously encountered in 12m of water. 1st cast was a small squire, then a few grinners....retie the leader and cast out again only to feel another grinner on the bait....ripped the bait away from it harshly and BANG...huge hit and peeled 30 odd metres from the reel then all became slack...reeled it in to find a lot of grinner teeth marks on the last 40mm of leader...dirty little shytes.

Oh well....came back to the rock wall and the water was filthy so went to the tripods for a quick look..not much there but in crossing the channel i spotted a school of jew so spent the next 30 minutes trying to coax some interest out of them....I left them sleeping and quietly motored away, defeated once more.

Into the river!!!!  I don't know why i got excited then, the high light was the biggest flounder I have caught in 30 years, and a couple of jumbo bream in the kilo class....snapper flathead and jew we encountered were all wearing nappies....

I ended the day with a leisurely drive from Pinkenba to Petrie that took 1.45 hours in the Friday afternoon Gateway traffic....so relaxing indeed.

[ellicat]

Fun read, but such a frustrating day. Plenty of time to reflect in the traffic.

Those grinners seem to be in big numbers all around the bay lately.

 

[AUS-BNE-FISHO]

Good report @mangajack, sorry to hear about the loss of your favorite rod, at least you still got a few bites. 

[Huxstang]

Chris Britton is getting some Snyder blanks still I believe….he is on the web and down at Redland Bay.  Nice bloke too, did a Swains trip with him.

But if you want something more current its hard to go past the Wilson Venom’s for a composite blank.

[mangajack]

Thanks Mate, I have bought a few rods from Chris over the years.

My current snapper plastics rod blank he brought in for me from the states....I might get another blank the same for when i break this one...  helluva nice plastics rod even though it is entirely unconventional here to use this type of rod.

[Huxstang]

I’m intrigued…..what is the blank and why so different?

I have an Edge 704 spin for soft plastics which is pretty nice but also use a much softer tipped Shimano Tcurve Premium 732 which I also don’t mind.

[Rebel]

Top story.

You can't beat Snyder rods.

[mangajack]

7 hours ago, Huxstang said:

I’m intrigued…..what is the blank and why so different?

I have an Edge 704 spin for soft plastics which is pretty nice but also use a much softer tipped Shimano Tcurve Premium 732 which I also don’t mind.

My rod was the first prototype GatorTail graphite weave/fibreglass weave blend rod Snyder made...remarkably good rods for their time....long way surpassed now.

The advantage is the rod had the all out toughness of glass, the sensitivity of glass and 1/2 the weight of glass....with about double the bottom end power in the rod.

I used it for decades busting GT's and macks off the rocks, making tuna submit in the bay, a lot of snapper were tamed and a few barra were mastered with the rod.....originally built overhead...ten years ago it started sporting stradics as fishing techniques changed.

I am pretty sure that Snyders GT's were dropped from production when Wilsons Live Fibre hit the market.....always thought there was a connection there. Snyder continued either full glass or full carbon after that.

I still have maybe 8 snyders in the shed.

[Old Scaley]

A bit embarrassing that your old mate’s last battle was with a grinner, but sad nonetheless. Sounds like you have plenty of fallback options.