The ABT Mallacoota qualifier was a highly anticipated event by all participating anglers. With fine and calm weather predicted it would be hard to find a more picturesque location to spend a couple of days chasing bream. Due to work commitments I had to miss the prefish day which lowered my expectations for the tournament. My plan rested solely on my findings during the Vic Bream Classic held two weeks prior to this event. Starting down the order on day 1, I made a short 5 minute trip to Mallacoota’s top lake. I began fishing a big eye blade in 4m of water about 100m from the bank. With schooling fish being the word on the street, I was hoping the fish hadn’t moved too far since the classic. I was a little unsure of my decision and after the first hour clicked by, without even a hit I really started to curse not having prefished. I made a change to a 4” Turtleback worm in pumpkinseed matched to a 1/12 Nitro bream finesse jighead and immediately landed 3 legal bream included a plump 35cm fish. (how quickly things can change) The bite slowed again so I moved closer to the shore line to scan the shallows. Flicking lures into the lake fringe saw my non-boater pull an awesome kilo plus bream. Unfortunately that was the only fish sighted so we headed back out into deeper water. I spent the rest of the day throwing turtlebacks with a fairly standard technique, once the lure had reached the bottom I would gently lift the rod, moving the turtleback about 1m. Just long enough to attract the bream with the fluttering tail. Most of the hits came while the turtleback lay still on the bottom. The bite pattern was very on and off for the entire day. There were long periods of nothing that were broken by small patches of 3-4 fish. With a couple of upgrades within the last hour I weighed in 4.18kg and was placed in 6th position. My non boater fished fantastically and took a healthy lead into day 2 with 4.26kg in the non-boater division. On day 2 the bite pattern changed dramatically which had my live well empty at 8:30 and once again I was unsure of what to try next. I had 2 choices, either persevere in deep water with day 1’s proven pattern or move to the shallow margins. Decisions can make or break a tournament and this one set up an incredible day of fishing. The move to shallow water saw 4 bream boated, 3 of which were over a kilo. The fish were holding on the weed in between the rocky shore and the deeper water. Casting camo worms and a hardbody over the weed and working it back with an all important pause in the dark patches seemed to do the trick. I watched all 4 fish rise from the weed, chase down and swallow the lure. It was heart stopping, hold your breath fishing!!! The 5th fish proved to be the toughest. With 2 hours to go, I moved back to the deeper water and threw a big eye blade. It was pure relief when a 30cm yellowfin bream made it into the boat. To top it all off I was able to upgrade that fish with a 35cm black bream. Weighing in just over 5kg on a tough day and taking my total to 9.41kg was extremely pleasing. The nerve racking wait as all the other anglers weighed in was made even worse when two other 5 kilo bags made it to the scales. The end result had the top ten riddled with quality anglers and to come out on top was unexpected but very satisfying. Cheers Hodgey
Look at this picture of the HastingsRiver at Port Macquarie. The sun is rising, the water glistening. You can almost sense the anticipation of the anglers in those boats as they head off on Day One of the Port Macquarie ABT event with nothing but bream, bream, bream on their minds.
What the picture doesn’t convey so well is how bl**dy cold it was!! Ok it wasn’t so bad sitting at the start even though the temperature was only four odd degree’s, but once that boat started moving the wind cut right though and once on the plane at some 80km/h I’m sure I would have been warmer standing starkers in the meat fridge at Coles. I remember leaving the cabin that morning saying “the last thing I must do is not forget my gloves”. Sure enough the last thing I did was forget my gloves. For that I was to suffer but more of that later.
For various reasons having a pre-fish on the Friday meant leaving home at 3am and heading straight to the boat ramp but as we slowly chugged away around 7am any grim thoughts of being up half the night vanished. The sun was up and its weak warmth was kind of comforting as we headed into the mouth of the HastingsRiver to see what was happening and try and establish some kind of pattern to how the bream were feeding. After picking up a few undersized fish and watching a fellow breamer distracted by some Mack tuna sitting in the middle of the channel we slowly worked our way up river, hitting each spot briefly to see if there was any sign of life.Upstream the water was very dirty, a hangover from the recent floods but the lower reaches weren’t too bad and as the tide changed the water cleared dramatically as fresh seawater pushed in.As it was we found a few fish here and there and came away with the idea that whilst conventional tactics might be ok early in the day, as the water cleared and the sun came out fishing straight through fluorocarbon lines would be the go. Re-rigging that night on went the 2lb and 4lb Berkley Trilene Fluorocarbon with a fresh Nitro jighead ready for the morning.
Now if your doing the right thing and reading the Berkley Pro Blog regularly your probably looking at the picture opposite thinking you’ve seen it before. And you have…check my tale of woe in Tales from Taree.Yes it happened again, tournament time and Gatesy gets a cold (‘bout the only thing he would catch according to some!)That’s where the glove thing comes in.I didn’t feel too bad at the start but the cold wind was cutting through me and the absence of gloves had me stuffing my little handies as deep in my jacket as possible as my boater tried to converse with the sniveling ball in the passenger seat.
Luckily we didn’t go to far come the whistle and we started to fish the seawall at the mouth of the river. Half an hour or so in and my 2inch Gulp Shrimp in Banana Prawn colour was pursued out of the rocks and the Pro Tactic/Abu 702 /Microfuse combo did the rest. Sometimes fishing this gear is like fishing on autopilot, its just so solid and despite my clumsiness the first legal was in the well. Amazing how much better a fish in the tub can make you feel!
The day continued relatively slowly but I managed another three legals in similar fashion and would have had my five had I not dropped a good fish during a quick sortie to some oyster racks. Solely my fault I had upped the drag on the reel to give myself a chance at getting fish out on 4lb Trilene FC (gee you can give that stuff some stick) and when a good bream took my Camo coloured 3in Craw on a 1/16th Nitro head all was going well until I was a bit slow to back the drag off when I got the fish to clearer water. Obviously lightly hooked, a final lunge near the boat saw freedom for the fish and me practicing some of my finest swearwords.
So take from that Gatesy’s lesson of the column. Don’t be afraid to vary that drag when playing a fish. Just make sure if you do your positive and clear in you actions and the great drags on the Abu and Pflueger reels allow a fine adjustment to help you. Once the fish is in open water don’t be afraid to give the fish some room but keep in control and if you’re a bit clumsy like me a leader like Trilene FC will give you a bit of margin for error.
Day 1 finished with a four fish weigh-in and I was sitting near the top of the field. A top ten place, another dose of medication, steak and a beer for dinner…this is living. Cold….what cold!
“This cold you clown!” my head screamed at me as I woke on Day 2. I felt shocking, and any thought of building on the previous days’ result were replaced with thoughts of simply how to survive the next seven hours. It felt even colder that morning and I just could not get warm enough to even think straight let alone put together a fishing plan for the day. As it was my boater and I lucked out and couldn’t find a consistent bite anywhere. The lift in spirits brought on by that first legal fish on day one never materialized, and to be honest for the first time since I started tournaments I was genuinely glad to be off the water.
The long trip home left me thinking what might have been. There were positives. Yet again the Pure Fishing gear, the Pro Tactics, the Abu reels, the Microfuse and Trilene leader had been faultless. My growing confidence in fishing 2lb Trilene FC straight through had seen me fishing $30 hardbody lures at times, something I would never have risked a few months back. And on Day One I pretty much hooked every fish that hit, not something I can usually say. At that moment though such positives didn’t stay in my mind too long. All I really wanted was my bed.
Enough of my whining, what happened in the main game? Well it was a good showing by the Team Berkley boys. That bloke in the Berkley boat Scott Towner capitalized on a good lead after Day One and took out 1st place with another good second day bag. Russell Babekuhl hung in for a 9th place after describing his first day bag as one of the hardest he had chased. And just for good measure Mark Mangold held his 12th place from Day One and would have sat higher in the places but for a couple of millimeters after a fish that measured bang on the limit lost a little in the livewell. No shrinkage gags thankyou! All in all a good effort…well done fella’s.
As for me I’m looking to the next comp at Mallacoota. Surely I can do one tournament in reasonable shape this year! I hear it maybe a vibe affair. Sounds like a reason to go and secure some of Matt Fraser designed Berkley Powerbait MF40 soft vibes.
But hey, like I need a reason to buy more Berkley stuff!
Until next time, good fishing.
Gatesy
Ps As said before I have no affiliation or agreement with Pure Fishing other than an enjoyment of their products. Oh and I do have a red Berkley hat which like I told the kid in the park at the time, “Finders Keepers, Losers Weepers!”
Pps Thanks to the boys at ABT and bream.com.au for the use of the pictures and organizing another great event and as always my boaters. Cheers boys.
The list goes on and on and on. The family and I headed out for the weekend to a remote section of beach between Weipa and Mapoon on the north western coast of Cape York Peninsula and with the Nissan Patrol loaded to the hilt, there was limited room for fishing paraphernalia. Having been there a number of times before, I knew how productive flicking small baitfish profile plastics from the beach can be so four bream rods were loaded into the car with a pile of Nitro jig heads and few packets of the old reliable 3” Bass Minnow Power Baits in pearl watermelon, pumpkinseed and bloodworm colour. The beach in this part of the world has no surf due to being located on the Gulf of Carpentaria but it does have reef, lots and lots of reef. Turtles, sharks, crocs and plenty of fish live amongst the reef and the place is absolutely alive with constant eruptions of showering bait fish that are being preyed upon by the numerous species that call the reefs home. Setting up camp and sitting beside the fire watching the colours in the sky change constantly as the sun sets over the water while the feeding pelagics put on a show makes this one of the most spectacular locations in the country.
After spending most of the first day driving and setting up camp, we were keen to get into the fishing that first morning and my seven and eleven year old sons were down the beach just on sunrise. My plan was to boil some water before doing anything but the kids were into the action and I was on the beach for that billy made it to the boil.
The first couple of hook-ups were sharks that were feeding on the baitfish schools so the 12lb leaders were bitten through in no time so I was busy re-rigging the kids’ rods. Once the sharks had moved on there was a constant run of queenfish with some landed and some spectacular bust ups, which was all part of the excitement of fishing this area with ultra light tackle.
My wife was next to join in and I don’t know how she does it but she hooked into two good golden trevally, one after the other. Chasing the fish up and down the beach with the kids and I watching on was great fun. I am also amazed at how much pressure you can put on a fish with 4lb FireLine and 12lb Vanish leader. The blubbery lips of the golden trevally are ideal for light leaders and with a little patients; both fish were landed without any tackle issues.
We continued the flick out 3” Bass Minnows around for plenty more fish before retiring for breakfast. The plan for after breakfast was to drive up the beach to check out some of the other reefs.
During our drive, we came across one of the most spectacular sights that I have ever witnessed. What looked like a basking shark was feeding in the shallows so we stopped to both check out the huge shark which at this stage, is still not identified, and to see if there were any fish hanging with it. It was not a huge surprise to find cobia and remoras jumping all over out Bass Minnows. I have to add, for two fish that look similar, it is amazing at how much harder the cobia pulls compared to the lazy effort or the remora. I guess that is all one can expect from a fish that it too lazy to swim.
Continuing along the beach we managed to hook into a school of giant herring and I was even lucky enough to land a good mangrove jack that ran me into the rocks a couple of times before swimming back out. The herring would jump the second that they were hooked and would often throw the lure only to have another fish from the school eat it and the fight would start all over again. Being hooked up to a giant herring for five minutes and finally start to wear him out, only to have the hook come out and a fresh fish jump on board was hard work after a while and really tested to tackle.
This is my first post on the Berkley web site and motivated by how well the little Power Bait Bass Minnows work on such a huge variety of fish. I doubt anything feeding on the bait around the reefs would pass up on a little 3” Power Bait and to experience it on light bream fishing is the essence of true sportfishing.
I arrived back from my trip yesterday with Lance in Karumba chasing Barramundi. It is without a doubt the best fishing experience I have ever had and also one of the best experiences I have had in my life!
The area we fished was remote and amazing, the service from Lance was excellent and very relaxed and the fishing itself was awesome. Between my friend Pat, my Dad Dave and myself we caught a total of 32 fish – 20 of them being Barra – the biggest one (caught by me, of course) was a massive 108cm! We trolled, we cast with hardbody lures and Gulp Soft Plastics and managed to catch fish with each new method. Lance definitely knows how to catch Barramundi.
Thank you for the fantastic trip and I will definitely be entering any more competitions you run. I will also be looking to go out with Lance again in the future with my 2 sons.
I have attached some photos for you. Once again, thank you very much.
Travis Smith.
Travis was the winner of the Purefishing "ring and win" competition that ran from August 1 2008 through January 31 2009. Travis, his dad and friend Pat have just returned and are glowing in their praise for the way in which professional guide Lance Butler conducted the four day adventure.
If anyone wishes to contact Lance the number is 07 4776 5686 or mobile 042497822. Lance can also be contacted on kls.butler@bigpond.com.au
Following torrential Queensland rains, the ABT Tweed event was looking to be a muddy, tough affair. However, anglers were met with a river much clearer than expected come pre-fish day. The pre-fish day indicated that the comp was going to be reasonably tough with plenty of small fish, and the only size fish caught in practice, coming from only a few locations that were bound to be pressured heavily by several boats over the following two days. I was fortunate to stumble on some good concentrations of small but legal fish on some flats during the prefish day, and settled to secure five fish in my well each day before surmising further about where I would catch the bigger one’s. The plan of attack included throwing hard bodied lures over flats to try and catch a few legals, before heading to deeper, rocky structures to target big fish using the ever popular 2 inch Gulp shrimp in Banana prawn colour and Craw in Camo colour. My first day started to plan with 5 legals in the well by 8:30am. Then began the hard slog, with many locations both up and downstream fished hard, for only small upgrades. I fished some of the upper sections of the river very hard – casting near weightless cut down Gulp craws under mangroves but failed to put anything bigger into the livewell. A few bass were caught upstream – indicating we had copped a decent fresh leading up to the comp – only a pity we weren’t fishing one of the popular ABT bass events! At the end of the day, I managed to weigh a measly 1.6kg that put me into 9th position. Day two is always tougher on the Tweed, and I opted to try one rock wall location first up in the morning to try and catch an elusive bigger fish. I only gave myself 15 minutes in this location before heading back to the flats to dredge up small legals and fill a bag. The first up location only produced a 23 cm legal prior to me leaving to throw hard bodies again on the flats. I managed to get my bag on the flats again and then returned to my rock wall location to fish it for the rest of the day in the attempt to get that elusive big fish. Casting varying weighted jigheads (depending on tidal flow) 2 inch Gulp shrimp I was able to get a few 25 and 26cm fish to upgrade my bag slightly. However, as hard as I fished – I was unable to fool one of those kicker fish. I weighed another 1.6kg bag for Day 2 and fortunately it was enough to push me into 6th spot and gain one of the prestigious Grandfinal qualifying spots.
Fellow Berley Team mate, Russel Babekuhl fished the conditions very well, and targeted oyster racks in the system to come out a clear winner for the weekend. Casting lightly weighted Gulp craws around structure produced all of Russel’s fish. Other Berkeley members that fared well included Matt Fraser who pipped me by a few grams...I’ll get you next time Matty! Matt caught several of his fish on the MF40 range of lures (as shown below) that will be hitting our shelves soon. Grab as many of these things as you can afford when they arrive as they are fish magnets! The weekend taught me that once again, dirty water is not a precursor to catching nothing. Targeting fish in the shallows is always a handy trick to have up your sleeve when the water turns muddy. Fishing plastic imitations of food sources that are readily available following a big flow is also a good strategy. For this reason, the Gulp shrimp and craws work very well in such conditions. I now have a 3 month break before the next comp, which is great because the snapper have just started chewing well in my local waters, so I’m off fishing the deeper stuff for a while! Happy fishing, Nige
I thought it was about time I put the Berkley motto “Out fishes all other baits” which is printed on every packet of Gulp! to the test. The Werribee Bream Classic is a competition held by the Werribee South Fishing Club. The target species is the Black Bream and anyone can enter. The competition is open for people to use whatever means they think will catch the biggest bream. You can use live bait, dead bait, plastics, hard bodies, flies and any other rod and bait combination you can think of. In an entry list that was close to 50, I was one of only 2 anglers in the field that was throwing lures, I thought this would be an interesting challenge. The comp starts at 12 midnight on Friday night and runs through to 2:00pm on Sunday. There were plenty of ultra keen anglers that had collected their favourite fresh bait and were fishing right through the night to try and make the most of the 3am high tide. I entered the comp at 11:45am on the Saturday, 15 minutes before entries closed. I fished the afternoon with the intention of not fishing in the comp on Sunday due to prior engagements. The Saturday afternoon session I thought was going to be fairly tough. My first location was the moored boats at the mouth. On the second last boat in a row of 10, I finally got a hit! I set the hook quickly and rod loaded up to a really solid bream. The fish peeled off the drag with ease and broke the 4lb Trilene leader on the barnacle encrusted keel of the boat. What a disappointment! I then moved on to a section of bank that had already been hit pretty hard by a dozen or so bait fisherman. As you would expect the fish were totally shut down and I missed one very tentative hit. Things weren’t looking too good. I always thought it would be hard work catching fish with 25 plus boats on a 4km river moving spots and dropping anchors here, there and everywhere. And I can tell you that the noise of some of the anchor drops really didn’t sound like the bream dinner bell. I thought about spending some time up river but as I drove around the first bend I was confronted with more boats fishing almost shoulder to shoulder. I decided my best chance was to give the front section around the moored boats a good going over. So I plugged away for a couple of hours, only getting a small touch now and then. A couple of times I had the Camo Worm bitten in half after a quick strike and short run. I figured there were enough fish under the boats but they were extremely shy, so patience was going to be the key. Using my Berkley Pro Tactic 6’7” rod I made gentle casts within cm’s of the boat hulls and let the camo worm which was matched to a 1/16 bream finesse jighead, sink to the bottom. Incorporating small and subtle twitches, the bream finally started to show some interest. Once I detected a hit, I would wait for up to 10 seconds, always watching the line for any extra movements. When I was convinced the fish had the worm totally in its mouth, I struck with confidence and started to land some quality fish. At the end of the session I went to the weigh master to weigh my biggest fish. I had 2 fish in the well that were similar in size. The first one weighed 1kg and the other was a little heavier at 1.115kg. As it turned out this was enough to take the overnight lead by over 300grams. Amazingly only 5 fish were weighed in by 8pm on Saturday night. With close to 50 anglers fishing all over the river using the freshest bait available such as; tube worms, sand worm, bass yabbies, crabs, garden worm and even live shrimp, an absolute deadly bait. The fishing must have been tougher than I thought. The weather turned nasty overnight and a 30kt wind cancelled my original plans for Sunday so I spent the day trying to better my big bream. I launched early however it wasn’t early enough as the only other lure casting angler was already working the moored boat. I decided to leave him to it and headed up river. I found a few legal fish however I couldn’t better my kilo plus fish. The end result was extremely pleasing. With only 9 fish weighed in for the weekend, my 1.115kg fish took out the biggest Bream. The other lure casting angler came in 3rd with a 980gram fish caught from “You guessed it” under the moored boats. So the Berkley motto definitely held true, and much to the surprise of the local bait fisherman. They just couldn’t believe that plastic lures had OUT FISHED ALL OTHER BAITS!!! “Go the GULP! camo worm” Hodgey
Brad Hodge is Purefishing Berkley pro in Victoria. look for more of Brad's informative blogs in the future.
One of the best ways to run a vertical jig is with a Gulp bait! This system is by far the most affective methods ever and it’s so easy it’s almost silly!!
If you’ve ever fished a vertical jig then you would know this scenario for sure.You drop a round over a great looking show on the sounder and you just know your going to be on! After all, the last two rounds have produced fish! In the back of you’re mind, you’re starting to think, when are these fish going to get a little stirred up and shut down? You start the retrieve. You wind your jig past the point where you should have got the big hit. You’ve only got a couple more winds left in you when you get that big ‘donk’ on the line…ON...and off!!This can happen on the very first drop of the day if the fish are not right on the job. I mean hell; I’m not always hungry either!!
When you start to analyse the pros and cons of what a vertical metal jig can bring to the party in the way of total edibility, the only things its got going for it, is that it sinks fast with action and it’s skinny and easy to wind up 100-m! No smell, no taste, no wiggly bits or softness and no bite appeal!! Bring forth the mighty GULP! All you need to do is slide on a 5” or 7” Gulp Jerk Shad on to you existing assist hook or hooks and you have just completely changed the functionality of you vert jig. It now HAS smell, taste, feel, glow, movement and bite appeal. Your jig now has nearly twice the visible profile on the drop because as the jig sinks the Gulp bait swings up above the jig on your assist and trails it like a super wiggly booger! On the retrieve, the Gulp bait lays along side your jig adding very little profile to disturb your action but exhibits all of those wonderful things about Gulp that we love so much. Not to mention giving your rock hard metal jig some much needed bite appeal!It’s this ‘bite appeal’ that will turn a hesitant grab into a solid hold. It literally takes just this much to turn your day for 2 to 10 fish. If you jig, you must try this.
Rigging your stuff goes like this –
• A knife jig weighing 100 – 250-g is suited to 1 x 5” Gulp Jerk Shad.
• A knife jig weighing 250 – 400-g is suited to 2 x 5” (on 2 x individual assist hooks) Gulp Jerk Shads or 1 x 7” Gulp Jerk Shad.
• A knife jig weighing 500- 600-g is suited 2 x 7” Gulp Jerk Shads.
• 1 x 5” Jerk Shad will slow your drop speed by 2 – 5 seconds.
• 2 x 5” Jerk Shad will slow you by 4 – 10 seconds.
• 1 x 7” Jerk Shad will slow you by 4 – 8 seconds.• 2 x 7” Jerk Shad will slow you by 10 – 20 seconds
Consideration need to be taken into account with regards to your drop speed. Adding things to your gear reduces drop speed, meaning you need to adjust your release times and your boat position.
If you’re into making your own assists then this little piece of single strand wire is accentual to keep you from being pantsed!
By running Gulp on your vertical jigs you are doing more than just attracting more fish to your rig. By putting this outfit through the water column continuously, you are affectively ‘berleying’ the water with fish feeding stimulant that will entice and motivate even the most shut down fish. Try doing that any other way at 100-m!!!! If you’ve never trusted me before than trust me on this one! This method will catch you more fish!!
This is roughly how it should look. The double Jerk Shad on a pump/wind retrieve looks so much like a squid you’ll kill yourself laughing....until you get whacked!
Look forward to the reports and photos of the ones that didn’t get away!! Cheers Royter.
