Long time report reader, first time poster.
Took a mate from work out fishing with the intention to go into the harbour and do a bit of fishing. Put the boat in about 7.45am at Wharf rd ramp, fired up the Johnno and we were on our way, that is until we got 200mtrs from the ramp and the motor began making painful noises. Quickly shut off the engine and instantly I knew I had made one of those elementary but costly mistakes...leaving the muffs on the motor. I let it cool down for a while and had time to think about what a dickhead I was and how much this was going to cost me. I managed to get it started again but was not running very well. I thought about going back to ramp but bugger it, were out here now so we may as well just putt around and use the live nippers I had gone to the trouble of getting so we just drit fished between the Rhodes and Ryde bridges (didn't want to stray to far from the ramp). Not much happening, that is until the tide turned to low and within 30mins had 3 undersize Bream and 4 legal between 27-30cm and 1 undersized flatty. I was quite surprised by the fishing to be had for that far up river.
We ran out of nippers and decided to putt back to the ramp when my mate said I should try and give it a a bit of throttle which I reluctantly and sceptically did and to my surprise it seemd to run fine, woohoo! I'll still have it checked out of course.
What was a bad way to start the day ended up being not a bad days fishing in an area I would normally motor over to get to somewhere else.