4 Hours on the Pine

[Thegurn]

For one reason or another, it's been quite a while since I've been fishing. Whether that's been the reason for my ever darkening mood lately is anyones guess, but the wife finally had enough this morning and demanded I get my miserable arse out of the house.

After a lot of umming and ahhing, I hooked up the boat and was grudgingly on my way to the pine by 9am. Totally out of character for me to think twice about fishing.

I got to the ramp, readied the boat and just as I was heading off to launch, a cretin with a jetski cut in.

"That's okay" I convinced myself. "I'm in no hurry. He won't be long"

So numnuts backs down the ramp and starts unstrapping and loading his ski from his car one item at a time.
Lifejacket, rod, tacklebox, esky, stuff to put in the esky.

"He's almost done" I say to myself. Temperature rising.
He then starts to untangle a messy 50 meter coil of rope to tie his ski up with.
"My turn any minute now".
Nearing boiling point.
He finally launches the ski, ties it to the pontoon level with the back of his little trailer and wanders down the end to have a chat to his waiting mate on his ski. No room for me.

I swallow my anger and decide to drive my boat off my trailer and moor at the upstream pontoon where people are fishing. Finally, ignoring the angry looks from them, I'm on my way.
Temperature simmering.

I pull up at spot one. First flick of the plastic ends in a bloody great birds nest out through the runners. Cut that off and rerig. Struggle coz I'd forgotten my glasses. Same thing next cast. Bloody overfull spool. Hat blows into the water. Temperature rising a bit more.

Fished there for a short while for nought. ..moved... another cast, another tangle. Nothing biting ... moved. Hat goes over the side again.
Put the dripping thing on my head and water shorts out my hearing aid.
Nearing boiling point again.

After 3 frustrating hours and a few more spots the tally is 5 tangles, (spool no longer overfull), lost hat 3 times. Buggered hearing aid, 4 unseen snags that shouldn't be there, 5 lost jigheads and lures, one recovered abandoned crab pot, and 2 tiny flathead so small that their yoke sacs were still attached.

Everywhere I went I kept getting annoying little taps thru my rod. Bloody pickers.
Finally realized the wind was flicking a flap of my shirt on the butt of the rod.

And the jetskis, buzzing around like blowflies showing me how fast they can go within easy casting distance of my boat. Quiet midweek fishing? Bah !
Doesn't anyone go to work anymore?

So I get to my last spot at the last of the run out tide. Toss the anchor out, cast straight onto a snag. Temperature soared well past boiling point. Rerigged.
I was flicking around for about 10 minutes when I turn around and see a bloke in his boat about 5 meters from my bow giving me a filthy look for some reason.
I can only guess that he was upset about me dropping anchor 20meters from the bridge which interferred with the last of his 950 meter line of drift from somewhere out of sight upstream.

I was in no mood for this crap by now. I went straight to DefCon1. Silos opened. No words were exchanged as I marched up to the bow looking like I was about to launch myself across the gap and go completely ballistic on him.... which I really, really wanted to do. Again completely out of character for me.
But he motored away.

"That's it !! I'm selling this effing boat" I said to no-one. Pulled anchor, knocked the top off my first beer for the day and headed back to the ramp.

The beer calmed me down a bit and after ploughing a new channel through the shoals I thought I'd try one last spot on the way back.

Well bugger me. Within 20 casts I had 2 flat ones just shy of 50 mm each and a good bream a tad over 38 on ice. I called it a day not wanting to push my luck.

Amazing how 3 small fish can change your day. Suddenly the world wasn't all that bad after all.

Might go back and see if there's more there tomorrow.