2010 Derwent ABT BREAM super series
Winners are grinners.................
The Tassie ABT qualifiers have come and gone again for another year. Round one was held at St Helens on Georges Bay over two days with the second round on the Derwent River in Hobart for a three day Super series event. After finishing just inside the top 10 at the St Helens round I was keen to put in a good performance for the Derwent a few days later!
With little rain for the past few weeks in Hobart and a falling tide of the first part of the session my plan was to fish the upper half of the river from Bridgewater Bridge and upstream. When I pulled up to the bridge and caught a solid bream first cast on a Camo 3”GULP fry my initial thoughts were confirmed that there were fish in this section of the river.
We caught fish throughout the practice day with the bite improving later in the day as the tide push in further down the river. As the tournament progressed I figured this late window to catch fish would also slow as the water would remain low for much of the day so I all but erased these fish from my memory.
I rotated two spots for the tournament and focused on them solely on day 2 and 3. The first was the Bridge Pylons located at Bridgewater where I fished Berkley GULP 3”Fry and 4”Turtleback worms in camo colour on 1/8thoz jig heads. Normally I prefer to fish lighter, however the current made fishing any lighter challenging. I would pitch the lure close to the pylons and work them back with a shake of the rod tip before letting the lure flutter down again. The fish would normally hit around half way down the pylon. Due to the strong current I would cast to the same pylon several times before switching to the next one to rest the fish before coming back and covering the same water.
The second spot was a weed edge further upstream. The fish tend to sit on the edge of the weed with the falling tide waiting for any baitfish or other edible items to be pushed into the deeper water. As the depth was only 3m and the current wasn’t as strong I opted for a 1/16th oz nitro jig head. Using the same GULP soft plastics as listed above & would hop the lure along the bottom where the bream waited in ambush, with most bites coming as the lure fell to the bottom.
Tides proved to be important for both spots and they complemented one another well. The bridge would fish well early and late in the day while I concentrated on the weed edge during the middle of the session.
Fishing bridge pylons can be brutal so I opted for 6lb Berkley trilene leader and a 6’6” 2-4kg Pflueger Supreme rod and a Pflueger Supreme XTS reel loaded with 3lb Stren Microfuse. For the weed edges I down sized to 4 and 2lb Berkley trilene and used the longer 7’ model rods.
I certainly didn’t do anything ground breaking during this event. I kept it simple and stuck to my plan; luckily it was good enough to claim the win on a system that is renowned for being home to Australia’s biggest black bream. Camo GULP’s have won many tournaments over the years and no doubt will continue to into the future. I hadn’t fished the new camo GULP Turtle Back worms before the 2010 Derwent BREAM Qualifier..... it won’t be the last time!
Pat Sullivan




















