The Tweed Experience

This year has been good to me. I have managed to find top ten spots in all the comps fished this year and have no issues with riding the form wave while it is available. Tournament fishing like any sport has it’s share of form highs and lows. One of my lessons this year has been to forget about tournament performance when on the water. I have made a habit of trying to forget about other anglers and get back to fishing for the pleasure of catching fish. The change in approach has meant that I invariably start to listen to the voice of instinct. This voice is the one that pops up when you pass a bank – and whispers ‘Nige, that bank looks good – maybe you should fish it?” or “How about trying something completely different like this lure in this colour?”. This voice forms the instinct that typifies your fishing during social hours and can easily be overlooked during the pressures of a fishing tournament. As it is with form – when things are working for you it is often because your instincts are tuned in – so in a away this is a two way street, but listening to the voice has certainly paid dividends for me this year. The opposite of my run of late has to be that of team mate Steve ‘The Wizard” Wilson. Steve is a great angler who is suffering the ill fate of a form slump at present. After the Tweed round he spoke to me and mentioned he doesn’t know what is going on – only that he knows by sticking at it, things will slowly come good again. I sympathise with him and am picking that it won’t be long before you see him back in the placings!
The results of my approach at the Tweed can be found on http://www.bream.com.au/ – so I am not going to rehash too much of that detail here.
Leading up to the Tweed event I had heard the fishing was tough. The pre fish day undertaken in sobering cold, wet and windy conditions confirmed reports. That voice in my head popped up early in the day following several short bites and told me that it might be worth tying on some stinger hooks for competition hours. The prefish day showed fish to be scattered and hard to tempt. The one plastic the fish seemed to be happy to have a go at was the impressive banana prawn coloured gulp shrimp. The press this lure has received lately is well deserved! I found fish in several places on the prefish day but only in one location was I confident that I could get a few legals if allowed to fish the spot on my own. I left the water at lunchtime Friday and headed home to tie up stinger rigs and think about a sound game plan.

I read a book recently that states when fishing – “Care and Attention breed Success”. The night before tournament days I place a lot of stock in preparing gear to precision. Things have to be well organised and each detail needs to be thought through. Every knot is retied and made to count. The boat is organised so I have plenty of easy access to all the hooks and lures I might need. With tough bites being the norm in tournaments these days finesse approaches are required – I have not looked back since opting for lighter line classes and super sharp hooks like those found in the Nitro Finesse range of jigheads.

The Polycraft was ready to go come tournament day 1 and I had a plan to hit my preferred bank straight up. Following the start I arrived to find only Steve Morgan fishing the bank and proceeded to pull three fish from the bank prior to the bite slowing at 7:30am. All fish were taken on the stinger hooks rigged in the tails of 2 inch Gulp shrimp in banana prawn colour. It was very tough to find fish through much of the rest of the day. Retrieving small hard bodied lures around weedbeds near the top of the Terranora Arm produced a few fish that allowed me to fill my bag prior to weigh in. At 1.97 kg’s the bag was far from big but enough to keep me in the top ten. The Tweed has always been a Voodoo arena for me on day 2 and I went into it with no high expectations. I decided to go straight back to my favoured bank and aim to get one maybe two fish from it prior to the bite stopping. I couldn’t believe my luck when I found the bank with no boats on it having arrived. I fished the key parts of the bank very hard and was able to pull one, two and then three fish off the first two drifts. I couldn’t believe my fortune and the fact that no other boats had arrived! At the top of the third drift, another boat pulled up and I made the most of my last drift by landing two legals and filling the limit prior to 7:30am. Another drift produced no fish and I realised the bite was over. Fishing the bite time hard had definitely provided benefits in that many other anglers found it hard to land legals following that early bite. Once again the stinger hooks paid dividends and provided 4 of the 5 fish landed.

I went into the weigh in having only upgraded one fish following the intial flurry of legals. A nerve racking weigh in proceeded and I managed to secure the maiden win by 50 grams with a small 1.94kg bag.
I always drive home from a tournament thinking about what I’ve learnt about my fishing in general. Lessons from the Tweed include trusting my instincts and spending a lot of time painstakingly preparing gear prior to fishing sessions and tying on rigs such as stinger arrangements on to jigheads. The retrieve used included a very slow lift and drop of my soft plastics along bank side drop offs. Any indication of a bite was met with a lift of the rod and in many cases a shy bite resulted in a fish having mouthed the tail of the plastic and ultimately the stinger arrangement. I also thoroughly enjoyed the company of my non boaters Bill and Wayne which made for light hearted and successful fishing.

The next few weeks include a hectic schedule of AFTA Trade show, Gold Coast ABT and Brisbane Boat Show – so should be a fun month. I am looking forward to all the new toys on display at the Trade Show! John Bell assures me the Berkley Stable have some great new product arriving so keep an eye out on tackle store shelves. Until next time..

Happy Fishing,
Nige