Basstastic Extreme Timed Bass Competition

12th and 13th December 2009 at Borumba, Qld.

Well what a great weekend! This was the last competition for Bass for the year. There were 6 individual comps. of 2 hours each. Lots of pressure!

My Dad, James and I haven't had the opportunity to fish together much this year so we were looking forward to it.

The first two sessions we used blades and grubs. Fishing was difficult and there were not too many fish weighed in. Only two anglers got their bag.

Half way through the second session I tied on a new MF50 and decided to try this. This caught us a few under sized bass which at least alerted us to the fact that the fish were attracted to this new lure.

I then set up three different rods with different coloured MF50's and Dad stuck to the Blades. Half way through the third session Dad said "You had better give me one too." By this time I had caught about 15 fish. After I won that session Dad won the next using the MF50's.

In the fifth session we found a patch of fish in nice, clean, open water at about 35 ft. So we both went to our 2 and 3 pound Berkely Fireline with six pound Vanish leader. By using this lighter line we new that the lure would have a better action and we would have a lot more fun. The fishing just got better catching over 30 more fish between us for the session.

For the sixth session the fish shut down and we had to go and find another patch. With ten minutes to go the sounder lit up and I nailed two legals in two casts on MF 50's, then headed to the finish line. A very successful weekend - 3 firsts, 2 seconds, 2 thirds and a fourth.

With confidence in the MF50 lures we decided to go back to Borumba two days later. The previous night I thought I'd try a few modifications on one MF50. I took off the back treble and replaced it with a little, fine skirt and a couple of floating stinger hooks. This I thought would improve the hook up rates as we were getting a lot more hits than hookups. We caught about 20 bass that morning and 10 fat yellowbelly. The yellow belly seemed to take a liking to the modified MF50.

Lake Macdonald is only ten minutes away and has been fishing well of late. Can't wait to get on the water and an MF50 in it!

Thanks for sending us up the lures John, they made us look good.

Merry Xmas to all!

Happy Fishing!

Cheers,

Callum Munro.




Callum is a Purefishing Junior Pro angler, based in Qld.
Callum has successfully competed in Bass and Barra tournaments during 09.
Look for more of Callum's reports in 2010.

ABT Barra Tour 09

Well what a trip! I fished with Ian Baker as Team Berkly/Nitro R&D and competed in the Southern leg of the tour. This comprised of two comps at Lake Awoonga and one at Lake Monduran. The aim of this trip was to test various modified Backbone jigs and modified 5" Power Mullets. To see if we could improve hook up and conversion rates. Also to have fun and catch barra!

Awoonga Night Championships
The planets aligned for the first Awoonga Event, this event ran from 4pm Saturday until 8am Sunday. Thats right a 16 hour mega-session. Not only a fishing comp, but an endurance event! The Conditions were fantastic with hot Northerly winds, increasing water temps and a full moon looming, things were looking very conducive to a good bite.

We started off slowly, trying a few spots that were productive on previous trips. None of them fired early, we finally settled back on a point just before dark, determined to stick it out there, convinced the fish would come on at some stage during the night. As the sun sank and the moon rose, the bites did come.

I think i got the first fish on around 7.30pm, and from then till about 9.30 we landed two or three each including a 103cm for Ian and a 106cm for myself. It went quiet for an hour or more, before a secondary bite period kicked in around 11pm to midnight. The last fish for me was just after midnight, and it thumped the 5" Hollowbelly and just shook its head before powering off on a long run. I was fishing an ABU Soron STX40 with 20lb fireline, and I called to Ian to throw the anchor bouy as I was getting low on line. Fortunately the fish stopped, and I got some line back, she had one more big run though, which had me a little worried. But I pulled her up, and then set about getting her to the boat. I backed the drag off a fair bit and played her out on a light drag, as heavy drags mean pulled hooks on barra. It was a good while before we got our first look at the fish, then it jumped near the anchor rope - and I thought holy sh#t, this is big! A few more nervous moments were had before Ian got her into the big net.

Whoo hoo! It was a two man lift to get her in. On the mat she went 120cm an equal PB! We fished on till about 1.30am for now more bites. Our tally at this stage was 5 to me and 3 for Ian. We set an alarm for 3.45am for the sunrise bite. The sunrise bite didn't happen, so we headed up Iveragh Ck, looking for more fish before the end of the session, this payed off with a 90cm fish to Ian. That was it for us, but it bought our tally to 9/10 for the session.

There were stories emerging at the tag mat, and boat ramp of some awesome results. Some teams absolutely cleaned up! I thought I was doing alright with 5.08m, but in the end that barely put me in the top ten. Daniel Gretch had a massive 5.83m, followed by only a cm by two of his mates including Jason Crofts with a 126cm fish!

Still some teams struggled, but overall it was a hot bite, and many ABT records were rewritten. We ended up 7th team with 9 fish for 866cm, so we were pretty happy with that.

Tactics - Our tactic on Karma was – anchored in 12 – 14 feet of water fishing into the weed edge at 8 – 10 feet, slow rolling 5” Hollowbellys. We were experimenting with stingers mounted forward of the main hook. And we only dropped two on these jigs all night, both on first jump before we could back off drags.

Between the comps we visited the Gladstone Fish Hatchery, where Kurt had barra breeding in full swing. It was great to see tens of thousands of baby barra destined for the dams.

Awoonga 2 day Evening Event

This event was held from 3pm till 10pm over two sessions. We had a bit of a look around at a few spots for no result before finally anchoring back on our point. A lot of teams had done well in the previous event fishing Berkley 5" Power Mullets, so we rigged some of these up and not long after arriving I hooked up on a Mullet that had only just hit the bottom when it was engulfed. I managed to land it and it went 109cm. Ian then hooked up on a Hollow Belly, before I had started fishing again, but it spat it first jump. After that I struggled big time, and never got another hookup.

Ian was going well though, he did drop another one, before keeping the hooks into his 3rd and 4th bites. The bite time kicked in about 8.30pm that night for most of the teams, but with check in at 10pm, everyone left them biting. Our night one result was – one for me, two for Ian. It seemed retrieve speed was a definite trigger, and I just couldn’t crack the right speed to get the bites that night.

The second session saw us heading up Iveragh Creek first, as our point hadn't been firing until late, so we went looking for some daytime spots. It produced one fish for me at 93cm, before we headed back to our point. It was the windiest night by far, the wind had changed direction as well, so we took a few goes to get the anchor to hold, and to get the right position. On the last attempt, we couldn’t even make headway against the wind, on electric, so had to start the main motor.

That night, was again fairly tough for us, I managed two more, and Ian got one. We ended up with seven fish overall for 675cm and placed 15th.

Jason Wilhelm took out the Evening Championships with 10 fish for 1010cm, another record. Big barra was a 121cm model taken by Sam Haig on Berkley 5" Mullet.

That was it for Awoonga, Unreal to see it fire up for the first comp and produce so many big fish.

Monduran Afternoon Championships.

We travelled the hour and half South from Awoonga to Mondy, and got in a day and a bit of prefishing. From this we determined that it was going to be much tougher than Awoonga. Apart from a couple of catfish, we only got three decent bites, one spat it on the jump and the other two I busted off in the timber, trying to go to hard on them.

So going into the comp we only had one plan, one spot, so we went there and spent all day in the timber covering an area about 300m long and 100m wide. In the prefish we got all our bites on 5” Hollowbellys in the prefish, so what does Ian tie on first – a 5” Mullet. We pull up and electric into casting position, I start ragging him for tying on a Mullet.

He says I’ll just give it 5 minutes, first cast Bang! On! Bullsh*t, Ian’s going hard on the fish, I’m driving hard on the electric. It was frantic heart in your mouth stuff, but somehow we got him to the net, and it went 99cm! Not a bad effort first cast, his Mondy pb.

Ian went on to hook another shortly after, we chased and fought it again, had it up a couple of times, before it found a log to wrap itself around and bite through the leader. Damn! The Mullet got another 2 bites for Ian, but the other two threw the hooks first jump.

I threw the Mullet a fair bit as well after Ian’s results, but only got a couple of bumps. My only hook up came on the Firetiger 5” Hollowbelly, again in tight timber. This time I used a lot of free spooling and then light drag settings, Ian was chasing hard on the electric, we knocked down three small trees in the fight, at times the fish was jumping about 30 to 40 metres away, while we still had 3 or 4 trees to negotiate to catch up. Finally we get a net shot, and she goes 103cm, a Mondy PB for me as well.

So only one each on day one, but enough to put us in 11th and 13th, Ian was cursing his missed opportunities. I was stoked to land my one and only in the circumstances.

Mondy Comp Day 2
Straight back to our spot, but the action was a little slower. The Mullet didn’t fire for Ian, but I managed five bites for the day on the Firetiger 5” HollowBelly, somehow three didn’t stick – they were fair dinkum thumps. The other two stuck and after the tree dodging routine, complete with passing rods around trees, and smashing Ian’s Nav lights. I landed a 99 and 100cm fish for the day, everything from Mondy for me was on 20lb fireline in the timber!

Final result was 3 for 3m neat, and an 8th place. In a tight comp, it could have been anyones, but Cy Taylor did it again, Narrowly holding out Carl Jocumsen. Just about everyone in the top ten lost fish that would have won it for them. As a team we ended up placing 6th at Mondy and 6th in the Southern teams AOY.

The presentation at the Gin gin pub was a great way to finish the tour, it was great to have a feed and a beer and meet a few more people and share more stories of the trip. The whole tour was a great social event, meeting new people and swapping yarns with old mates. The barra fishing was an improvement on the past couple of years. All in all it was a fantastic trip, lots of fish, I caught 12 fish for 1195cm - average of 99.5cm. 11 on 5" Hollowbelly, and one on a 5" Mullet.

Gear used
Spin - Berkley Dropshot Tournament Pro GEN II 6'10" 6-8kg Snapper Spin, ABU Soron STX 40 spooled with 20lb Fireline and 60lb Stren Fluro leader
Baitcast - Berkley IM6 Crankstik 6'3" 10 -15kg, ABU Revo Inshore spooled with 30lb Stren Sonic Braid, 60lb Stren Fluro leader
Lures - Berkley 5" Hollowbellys, Gizard Shad and Purple Tiger and night, Firetiger at Monduan during the day. Rigged on 1/2 Oz 7/0 backbone jigs (with stingers). Plus Berkley 5" Power Mullets Holographic Gold Shad.

Cheers,

Matt

Powerbait Hollow Belly = BIG Flathead

Lake Macquarie has some of the most picturesque shore line that I’ve ever seen anywhere. With oyster encrusted rocky shelves, sand and weed flats one could be forgiven for pointing the boat to the shallows and following the edge all the way around the lake, cast after cast. However sometimes it pays to keep a close eye on the sounder when travelling across the lake.

While travelling from one point to another, dad and I stumbled across a shallow sand flat in the middle of Lake Macquarie and although there were bream, pinkies and tailor on offer it was the monster flathead that I really wanted to catch. Coming from Melbourne and fishing in Port Phillip Bay where a monster flathead is anything over 45cm I was overly excited with the prospect of hooking up to 60cm plus fish.

After a hot day of 35 degrees, dad and I had a short evening session that saw him boat, 3 consecutive personal best flathead measuring 62cm, 70cm and an 83cm “croc”. We thought we had the bite pattern sorted and were looking forward to the next morning. Unfortunately the bottom fell out of the barometer over night which made for some tough fishing conditions the next morning.

As we struggled to get the flathead to commit to a strike, out came the tackle bag and the myriad of Gulps! and Powerbaits to try and tempt one of the big girls to bite. After trying some minnows and grubs I found a packet of hollow bellies in ayu. I rigged it on a 1/4 ounce nitro saltwater jighead and alternated between 2 different retrieves. The 1st being a long slow draw that would give the bait plenty of wobble and hang time. The 2nd was the burn a kill, where you point the rod straight at the bait and do2-3 really fast winds of the reel and then let the lure sink back to the bottom under a tight line. The burn and kill did the trick, the short blasts out of the sand with the paddle tail working like crazy was enough to get the sulking flathead to strike. Although the fishing was tough the rewards were well worth the effort.

We used 4” hollow bellies in ayu and purple tiger. We used standard jighead with a 3/0 hook which gave a high percentage of hook ups with plenty of gape showing. We boated close to10 flathead over 60cm including 2 fish over 80cm.

The most interesting difference between the 2 sessions was the fighting power of the fish. On the evening session with a high barometer we had the double hook up that lasted close to 4-5 minutes which saw us each land a 70cm plus fish on 4lb line. However after the barometer dropped sharply, the next morning the fights didn’t even last 20 seconds, even a 80cm fish didn’t put up much of a struggle. This just goes to show how sluggish they had become and even so, the hollow belly with its thumping tail still invoke an aggressive strike and caught us plenty of fish.

Hodgey

Team Pflueger Wins in Tassy.

The 2009 Spirit of Tasmania Trout Classics were held over two rounds in Tasmania’s central highlands.
Round one was held on Great Lake, a massive waterway with both rainbow and brown trout and round two on Arthur’s lake which is smaller in size with its population made up of brown trout only.
The tournament is photo based similar to the ABT barra series. The goal is to catch, measure, photo and release as many fish as possible in the standard 7-2pm fishing hour on lure and fly.

Round one we battled strong winds with gusts over 40knots making fishing challenging to say the least! I was teamed up with Andy McCarthy from Victoria and despite the conditions we chose to fish a shore with the wind pushing onto and down the shoreline. Riding metre high waves all day long was brutal on the body but the fish didn’t seem to care! Casting 2.5” Black and gold Powerbait T-Tails on 1/16th and 1/8th oz jig heads tight in on the rocks proved to be a winning formula. The fish were tight in on the shore looking for any items dislodged by the wave action. At the end of the day we had caught 21 fish for a total lenght over 10m with second place coming in with 12 fish and 6m+. Interestingly, many seemed to stick to hard bodies but the results show the humble T-Tail was the pick of the lures on the day!

Round two was held on Arthur’s Lake with calmer but much wetter conditions. For much of the day we battled wind and thunderstorms. The fishing however was reasonable with three teams finishing on 19 fish apiece. Like round one we opted to fish a windward rocky shore early and had instant success. Again fishing Black and Gold Berkley T-Tails we had managed 12 by 9am and things were looking good. After the fish went quiet we moved location to the Western side of the lake.
Fishing some standing timber in 12-20 feet of water I decided to give a sample MF50 a run with the fish choosing to lay low. The result was instant success! For the rest of the day most of our fish came on the MF50’s unfortunately we also dropped our fair share including one that came out of the water and spat the lure back at me in disgust…

We managed to miss out on the round win by only a few centimetres, however with a 1st place finish in round one we took out the overall series. Interestingly the results for Arthur’s proved how good Berkley lures are:

1st – Powerbait T Tails – Black and Gold
2nd – 3” GULP minnows – Moldy cheese and smelt
3rd – Powerbait T Tails – Black and gold/MF50’s

I think it is fairly clear that Trout have a weakness when it comes to Berkley products! I can’t wait for the MF50’s to be released. The smaller version is deadly on the trout and it seems the 50’s might be even better!

For much of the series I used the new Pflueger XTS Supreme and it performed flawlessly. Light, smooth and tangle free. These are sure to be popular amongst tournament and weekend anglers alike.

Pat Sullivan