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Mackay: Pioneer river #2

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Tuesday, 20 November 2007

Trev town

1 of 3

Launch:	- 9:00 AM
Landed:	- 12.50 PM
Tide:	- 12:30 PM, Low
Weather:	- Warm, 28 °C, 20 knots easterly. patchy rain
Caught:	- 3 x Trevally, 1 x Estuary Cod, 1 x mystery fish
Method:	- Trolling and casting soft plastic lures

Astro and I loaded Google Earth to determine our best options for bagging some fish during a morning outing and quickly figured a trip to the Pioneer river was likely our best bet. With an outgoing tide reaching it's low point at around midday, we decided to drift with the current down to the river mouth, fish the area until tide change and then steadily drift our way back. Easterly winds were blowing in at around 15 knots when we launched - not quite enough to impede our drift downstream, but enough to slow it considerably.

My first hook up came within about 20 minutes and oh boy, it was a goody. Unfortunately it struck on the rod I'd set aside for extracting bream and this was no bream. Judging by the way it was zig-zagging and peeling off line it was more liiekly to be a large Queenfish but I was unable to confirm that because as soon as I tried to tighten the drag (just when I was about to be spooled) it bust the line at the leader knot. I was starting to think it would be another one of those days.

I didn't bother re-rigging the Nitro Ultra bream rod, instead just concentrating on trolling a soft plastic 'slick rig' lure (the white red-headed version) using the heftier Viper. And I was rewarded for doing so right as we reached the mouth, landing a barely legal estuary cod. A short while late I hooked up again, although the fight was short and non eventful. Neither Astro or myself could ID the fish (it looked like some kind of small tuna) so it was quickly released. Soon after the same lure was struck again, this time by something much bigger and stronger in the form of a small giant trevally (what an oxymoron that is). 15 minutes later I was on again, another slightly larger trevally. 20 minutes after that I'd landed another of about the same size (approx 45 cm).

Rain rain go away

As the tide reached it's low point the bites died down and unfortunately for Astro, he missed out on hooking up on one of the trevally. This was pretty surprising really because for the most part we were fishing the same area in much the same way. Our approach only differed in our lure selection, as well as the fact that I was coating mine with stimulate attractant.

Once again it was the magic white body, red headed combo that produced the goods. I'm starting to think that this is the only type of lure I need!