Tales From The Back of the Boat - Port Macquarie

Look at this picture of the Hastings River 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 Hastings River 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.

Species Galore...............

Golden trevally, giant trevally, giant herring, cobia, dart, coral trout, queenfish, mangrove jack, remoras, tarpon, estuary cod……………..

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.

Mark Ward

2008 Fishing Trip comp winner reports in!

John,



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

ABT Tweed 2009 - An On Water Perspective

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